[HN Gopher] German credit agency earns millions through unlawful...
___________________________________________________________________
German credit agency earns millions through unlawful customer
manipulation
Author : latexr
Score : 273 points
Date : 2024-02-16 10:40 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (noyb.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (noyb.eu)
| vdaea wrote:
| What's the point of a credit agency if they can't get paid for
| making their reports?
| shmeeed wrote:
| They can and do get paid by businesses.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| They point of a credit agency is to sell the data about your
| credit worthiness to OTHERS that are considering giving you a
| credit so they can make an accurate risk assesment.
| vdaea wrote:
| That's a distinction without a difference. Whether the renter
| or the landlord buy the credit report, the renter will pay
| for it anyway.
| JackFr wrote:
| Well, no. If the applicant is denied they pay nothing.
| bberenberg wrote:
| In NYC we have application fees that are non refundable
| to cover background checks. It's turned into its own scam
| where people show rooms to rent, collect deposits, and
| never run the checks and keep the deposits.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| The applicant keeps applying until they are approved, so
| everyone ends up paying. Being perpetually denied would
| mean being homeless. Not much of a silver lining.
| fabianholzer wrote:
| No, a business (or landlord) is free to spend their own
| dime on a report and is not entitled to get data about
| others for free.
|
| In the case of landlords it is possible that they ask the
| potential tenant to hand in a report as a precondition to
| even make a contract offer. In that case the potential
| tenant would have to pay for their own data if it weren't
| for GDPR. The Schufa uses dark patterns to trick people
| into buying data they legally are entitled to get for free.
| If you get around their confusing UI (we recently did...)
| they send you that infamous 30 Euro report for free without
| much more ado.
| yorwba wrote:
| They're allowed to charge for the service of assessing a
| person's credit risk and attesting to it. In the common case
| you just get a document saying effectively "we have no negative
| information on file regarding this person".
|
| But they also provide what's essentially a vanity service where
| they give you a more detailed breakdown of the information they
| have on you. They're also allowed to charge for that.
|
| The issue is that under the GDPR, they're _also_ required to
| provide all the information they have on you, for free.
|
| Now this obviously conflicts with their nice side business, so
| they're trying to herd people towards the paid offering.
|
| I don't think making the free GDPR export more prominent would
| threaten their core service. After all, businesses interested
| in your creditworthiness don't want to make too many complex
| decisions themselves, so they'll continue to rely on Schufa's
| stamp of approval instead of wading through the details of your
| financial history. (And how do they know you're not hiding
| something from them?)
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| They should market validation and non-repudiation services
| instead of just selling personal data.
|
| The problem is with marketing, not business model.
| f6v wrote:
| I don't know how it's in other countries, but Schufa is a
| monopolist and feels like simply paying a tax. You have no
| choice.
|
| Interestingly, I didn't need a credit check to rent in Belgium
| and Denmark.
| mschild wrote:
| There are 3 other companies in Germany that offer the same
| service. Schufa is the most well-known one but far from a
| monopoly.
|
| That said, I agree with you. It needs to go.
| bun_terminator wrote:
| I have never heard of that. Schufa is THE thing you need for
| everything. Hard to believe they're not a monopoly in
| practice?
| rob74 wrote:
| Maybe it's the same as with TUV? There are other companies
| that offer the mandatory recurring technical inspection of
| your car ("Hauptuntersuchung"), e.g.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekra, but "TUV" has become
| synonymous with the process itself...
| Aachen wrote:
| Same in the Netherlands, and I can personally corroborate that
| you don't need it in Belgium. Finland also didn't need it but
| for a temporary student apartment that might be different.
|
| Currently in Germany, yeah... we paid the Schufa tax twice over
| because we're two people renting together, and the GDPR data
| export thingy conveniently omits the credit score they've
| computed about you...
|
| Was considering whether one can make use of the 14-day return
| thing, but they've thought of that: it uses a sealed envelope
| that's hard to open without leaving evidence (under a guise of
| having a nice opener mechanism).
| pjmlp wrote:
| I only know something like Schufa here in Germany, never needed
| something like that in Portugal, UK, France, Switzerland.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| In Switzerland for a proper lease, you likely need to provide
| a (clean) record from the debt collection register. But it's
| a government run agency, as it should. No score. Debt
| collectors can file claims a bit too easily and there are
| errors, but you can also challenge them easily.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most countries have something allowing liens against
| property; liens against persons are harder to keep track of
| (hence things like credit burros spring up).
| pjmlp wrote:
| Back when I was actually living there, 2003 - 2004, it was
| only the painful interview process as if applying for a
| job, but I didn't had to provide anything else.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Debt collection records were definitely a thing 20 years
| ago.
|
| But it sounds like you were dealing with an individual
| landlord, that's kinda rare. They might be more willing
| to use common sense and not ask useless documents from
| someone who just arrived in the country.
|
| On the other hand, big property management companies will
| typically not bother with an application that doesn't
| tick all the boxes.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Being at CERN helped, it wasn't individuals, but it took
| about three months, and several attempts.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| CERN gives you diplomatic status, by law (at least in
| Geneva) lessors have to be more accommodating indeed.
|
| On the other hand, most landlords and property management
| companies absolutely hate applications from people who
| they know are going to leave after a fixed term contract.
| odiroot wrote:
| In the UK, it's usually the landlord (or their agent) doing
| the background checks on you. And they pay for it.
| tumetab1 wrote:
| In Portugal most of times you need to provided an income tax
| statement which I think servers the same purpose.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Is definitely not the same, schuffa has a complete history
| of anything financial related to your life, including a
| credibility score that we don't have any clue how they come
| up with it.
| xen0 wrote:
| In the UK at least, credit reports largely happen behind the
| scenes, and potential landlords etc cannot perform a full
| credit search. With your permission they can perform a 'soft'
| search (have you declared bankruptcy or do you have any
| County Court Judgements) and they may not charge you for
| doing this.
|
| Further, as of GDPR, you are entitled to all information from
| the agencies for free. Prior, you could obtain it for a small
| fee (PS2 by post if my memory serves me correctly).
|
| As far as I'm concerned, SCHUFA is basically a scam I am
| compelled to fall for whenever I want to rent somewhere.
| hulitu wrote:
| > I don't know how it's in other countries, but Schufa is a
| monopolist and feels like simply paying a tax
|
| It looks more like the Mafia. You pay a protection tax but this
| does not guaranty anything.
| harha wrote:
| might be worth fixing the problem all together by making it
| easier to kick out people who don't pay rent.
| tetris11 wrote:
| In a better world I could maybe believe that giving landlords
| more power could make the system more efficient, but...
| well...
| harha wrote:
| The amount of paperwork to rent in Germany is just silly,
| so the landlord can have a higher likelihood of getting the
| agreed rent paid. That's an additional cost when I want to
| rent a place and I'd rather not have a that at the cost of
| being kicked out when I don't pay.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Because landlords have never abused their power for financial
| gain, malice or outright to get sexual favours from desperate
| tenants
|
| It took nearly 10 for my previous landlord to face the
| justice.
|
| She was completely outrageous and shameless in her crimes -
| blatantly in violation of registration for HMC, violation of
| planning permissions, squalor, disrepair, the houses had rats
| and literal hole in the wall for rain and wind. She would
| harass gullible and naive students, illegally evict them,
| etc. and all her crimes were on written record.
|
| And she was doing it with impunity for years. For all that,
| her punishment is a slap on the wrist - https://www.birmingha
| m.gov.uk/news/article/266/rogue_landlor...
| jonp888 wrote:
| You don't need to pay. You can get a report for free showing
| all the information they have about you. It just doesn't show
| the score.
|
| I have never known anyone to demand the paid version.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| This is exactly what the lawsuit is about, they hide the free
| version and it does not contain all information.
| shmeeed wrote:
| It's high time this issue gets sorted out by the courts and
| Schufa is finally forced to change their malicious business
| model.
| mschild wrote:
| Change it to what though?
|
| On the one hand, I think Schufa is collecting a lot of
| unnecessary data that they should'nt have access to. For
| example, when I bought a pre-paid SIM card in Germany the
| provider did a Schufa check. No idea why.
|
| On the other hand, I get why a credit score can be useful for
| larger purchase decisions. If I was a bank, I'd like to know if
| the person I'm lending 400k for a property, has in the past
| defaulted on any loans.
|
| I genuinely don't know what a good middle ground is though.
| fmbb wrote:
| A good middle ground could be to only check what you
| suggested the bank wants to know:
|
| "Has this person defaulted before?"
|
| If someone wants to borrow huge sums from a bank the bank
| should take the risk and price it appropriately.
|
| If someone wants to borrow money to buy a TV the seller
| should take the risk and price it appropriately.
|
| The current solution seems too invasive for what it provides.
| How is the world better because Schufa knows someone bought a
| prepaid phone card and can sell that to an online store when
| you buy a pair of shoes and choose to pay by invoice the next
| week?
|
| Something is in theory cheaper somewhere but where is the
| proof? The only hard data we have is that Schufa and
| companies like them are making billions, so there is
| certainly money to be saved by someone somewhere by scrapping
| this.
| kioleanu wrote:
| Schufa for buying stuff and Schufa for banks are two
| different branches, meaning that if I buy something with
| Klarna, they'll query a Wchufa service for online
| purchases. A bank credit will query another service from
| Schufa, which probably tells them what other loans I have
| and will put a huge dent in the score
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > If someone wants to borrow huge sums from a bank the bank
| should take the risk and price it appropriately.
|
| Yes, but the point is that they can use your credit score
| to make more fine-grained assessment of risk.
|
| Should an auto insurance company offer the same rate to a
| 97 year old blind driver with a history of accidents as
| they would to a 30 year old in good health with no tickets?
| What about the 16 year old who just passed his driving test
| yesterday? Clearly these three people present vastly
| different levels of risk to the insurance company and, even
| though it is certainly _possible_ for the insurance company
| to do so, it would be stupid to ask them to pay the same
| rate.
|
| The bank is simply doing the same thing: Pricing risk
| appropriately. The fact that they offer significantly
| different interest rates to different groups (or decline to
| offer credit entirely) just shows that these signals are
| effective at measuring risk.
|
| > How is the world better because Schufa knows someone
| bought a prepaid phone card and can sell that to an online
| store when you buy a pair of shoes and choose to pay by
| invoice the next week?
|
| Well, the shoe store is extending you credit, so it would
| seem appropriate for them to want to, as you put it, price
| the risk appropriately. The fact that you have recently
| undertaken other credit obligations is suggestive (yes, not
| conclusive, but still suggestive) that you may be in a
| precarious place financially and thus statistically more
| likely not to pay your credit on time.
| dgellow wrote:
| Force them to have transparency, regular audits with
| consequences if they fail
| sofixa wrote:
| > On the other hand, I get why a credit score can be useful
| for larger purchase decisions. If I was a bank, I'd like to
| know if the person I'm lending 400k for a property, has in
| the past defaulted on any loans.
|
| The amazing thing of living in the modern connected world is
| that we have all sorts of information available easily. We
| can use what other countries are doing as inspiration, or as
| learnings what not to do.
|
| The problem you're describing has been solved for decades in
| tens of countries around the world, there's no point in
| reinventing the wheel. In France what the bank does is ask
| the national bank about the person's credit history, which
| will only contain current and past loans, lapses in
| repayments, being sent to collections, etc. So only stuff
| that is actually relevant to the question "has this person
| defaulted on loans previously and are they thus a risk of
| defaulting again", which together with the information about
| current revenues is all they need.
| ttyyzz wrote:
| You can request a free "data copy in accordance with Art. 15
| GDPR", which according to them "contains information that you
| should treat sensitively." and further: "SCHUFA therefore advises
| against passing it on to third parties."
|
| The product they market, the "credit report", costs EUR30 and,
| according to them, is "forgery-proof" and "up to date" (lolz).
|
| I don't know the main differences to the free "data copy" -
| probably just a report with this specially invented key figure
| and a bit nicely prepared.
|
| All in all, SCHUFA has a very unsympathetic image here in
| Germany, I think rightfully so. Nobody wants to have anything to
| do with them voluntarily.
| kioleanu wrote:
| The free report is the list of entries they have on your name.
| Based on that they calculate scores and risks, but you don't
| have access to those numbers unless you pay.
|
| They did buy an app last year called Bonify that allows you to
| see your credit score for free. There was a hilarious scandal
| last year as a security expert was able to get some high
| politicians credit score through the app and they shut the app
| down for a few days so this doesn't get exploited
| amelius wrote:
| Question. How do I know where to send my "data copy requests"
| if I want to know which companies have my data?
| calmoo wrote:
| Some fun features of SCHUFA in Germany:
|
| 1. If you apply for a loan, this affects your credit rating. Yes
| - not _get_ a loan, or _default_ on a loan, simply by applying
| for a loan, your SCHUFA can be affected negatively. Especially if
| you are shopping around for loans, this is infuriating. This
| happens because your SCHUFA is affected simply by another entity
| checking your SCHUFA score. This is also really annoying because
| it can be very hard to get a loan as a recent immigrant to
| Germany, so you inevitably end up applying for multiple ones.
|
| 2. Your SCHUFA score is also affected by where you live, and how
| many jobs you've had in X years, and how often you move (which is
| often as a recent-ish immigrant).
|
| 3. Services like Klarna affect your SCHUFA - even if you have a
| perfect payback time.
| vdaea wrote:
| Using a service like Klarna means you're bad at dealing with
| money, so it makes sense.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| It isn't. I financed my phone for free via Klarna. I could
| easily pay it at once but why would I. In the end I save a
| bit because of inflation.
| vdaea wrote:
| Unless either your salary or the price of the phone
| increased in those months, you didn't save anything.
| TheNorthman wrote:
| He can't predict the future. The relevant metric must be
|
| 1. The chance, weighted by amount, of a price hike/salary
| increase
|
| 2. The chance, weighted by amount, of a price
| decline/salary decrease.
|
| As inflation is generally an upward trend, clearly no. 1
| is more likely and thus the best bet.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Another advantage of financing even though you would have
| had the money on hand is that you have more liquidity/the
| option of doing something with that money in the
| meantime.
|
| Also someone may have some assets they could turn into
| liquid cash if I really needed to but may not have a lot
| of liquid cash on hand, so there would be little risk in
| paying something in installments as long as their assets
| would be enough to cover it in a pinch.
| archi42 wrote:
| While liquidity is a reasonable argument, I only know
| this from "rich people doing things/investments"; e.g.
| not selling shares in your company when building a new
| house, or a company building a warehouse.
|
| I am not sure it actually applies to the cost of a phone.
| Chances are, if those matter, you'd be better off with a
| cheaper phone to begin with. (Substitute phone with other
| luxury articles).
| globalise83 wrote:
| The price of the phone and the installment amounts are
| fixed at purchase. If there is a positive inflation rate
| you are guaranteed to make a real saving (but not a
| nominal one) by paying some of the purchase amount later
| on. What happens to your salary or the price of the phone
| later has nothing to do with it.
| dmurray wrote:
| Or if there was literally anything else he'd prefer to
| buy up front than wait until he'd saved up enough to
| replace the cost of the phone.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Just by keeping that money in a savings account you'd
| save _something_.
| josefx wrote:
| > I financed my phone for free via Klarna
|
| So how do they make money? Sounds like they would be losing
| money to inflation by offering that service for free.
| vdaea wrote:
| They make money because they know that if you need to use
| Klarna to finance a EUR300 purchase you are very likely
| to default on the loan and pay interest.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > So how do they make money?
|
| Generally the logic on "free" financing by the seller is
| that without it, they may have not made a sale at all.
| Sure it cuts into their margins, but offering rebates
| would have had a similar effect.
|
| Klarna probably still charges the vendor a few bucks for
| handling the thing.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/buy-now-pay-later/
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| Bad at dealing with money isn't necessarily true. Better to
| say "has outstanding financial obligations."
| lukan wrote:
| Huh? Aren't they try to be mainly a online payment provider
| like paypal? That is how I used them couple of times. Money
| straight from my bank account via them, towards the shop.
| sofixa wrote:
| They also provide payments plans (pay in 3/4 instalments,
| or over a year or two) which often, but not always, charge
| exorbitant rates. I've bought stuff split over 3-4
| instalments multiple times for free or for a minimal
| processing fee (like 3 euros to pay 1600 euros in 4
| instalments over 4 months). Always for stuff that I can
| afford outright, but would prefer to split the costs over
| multiple months.
|
| They probably make their money from the seller who banks on
| the fact that people would be reassured of being able to
| afford the high priced item, and thus be making more sells
| than otherwise.
| kioleanu wrote:
| I use Klarna (albeit rarely) to only pay _after_ any returns
| are completed and only the amount I need. Not pay upfront and
| then wait good know how long for three online shop to return
| my money. I always pay well before the deadline.
|
| My bank just scraped virtual cards and I use them for online
| payments so I wanted to use Klarna as a virtual card. Went
| through the whole process only for it to fail at the end with
| Klarna saying that they can't generate that card, but I
| should go talk to Schufa or Arvato about it.
|
| So, not all use cases are bad and Schufa should distinguish
| between them.
| asmor wrote:
| To note, SCHUFA requires all requests to contain a feature code
| describing the GDPR-"legitimate reason" for the request, and
| only some affect credit. But those consuming the API have long
| sent wrong codes, and nobody in the chain cares.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Regarding 1): This can be avoided by having an agency asking
| for loans for you, as those requests are not directly linked to
| you as far as Schufa is concerned.
|
| Most of the time so, you can easily ignore Schufa in your dqy
| to day live. They suck to deal with for mortgages, loans and
| appartment rental so. And they over step their authority and
| abuse their power all the time, without cobsequences for them
| so far. Hope that changes soon.
| alibarber wrote:
| Applying for a loan affecting your credit report also was/is a
| thing in the UK - but I think banks realised that it was
| hurting their business (they want to sell you a credit
| card/loan after all, and aren't going to if people are scared
| to ask them for it). So now it's a gimmick that's splashed all
| over their websites that you can get a quote with only a 'soft
| search' that doesn't affect your report.
|
| Even though, if you log on to the (free) credit reporting
| service to see your own data - these 'soft searches' are still
| recorded, so the industry has basically decided that they
| shouldn't affect your chances of getting credit.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Don't about the UK but in the US there used to be a big
| privacy problem around people who worked at banks and car
| dealerships looking up credit reports for non-business
| reasons. Soft inquiries are a way to combat that by making
| every request to view a person's credit report into a
| recorded event that the person can see.
| prepend wrote:
| These aren't random factors though, they are all correlated
| when higher risk of default.
|
| Would you like the models to ignore these predictors of
| financial strength? Because, you don't like it?
| data_maan wrote:
| As the previous person pointed out, these predictors have
| cases when they are obviously wrong.
|
| Solely relying on statistics will have people falling through
| the cracks.
|
| A perfect example of when thinking only in averages, and
| using trendy data-first approach leads to awful and stupid
| results for groups with too little size to matter
| statistically. Make your models fair, ffs!
| calmoo wrote:
| I'm sure you would change your opinion when you immigrate to
| a new country, have to move around to different apartments
| because of a massive housing crisis, and then find an
| apartment long term and get accepted, and then get rejected
| based on your SCHUFA because you moved around multiple times
| and perhaps opened a bank account or two.
| bombcar wrote:
| Applying for a loan in the US can affect your credit score for
| awhile, because the system isn't instantaneous and it's trying
| to handle someone requesting (and getting) multiple loans at
| once.
|
| There are "soft pulls" and "hard pulls" that affect this
| differently. Usually it doesn't matter much in the long run of
| things.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Great! I hope that noyb gets the case, being at mercy of Schufa
| has a Mafia feeling to it.
| wolframhempel wrote:
| What surprised me about Schufa is that the certificate it
| provides only states that you didn't have any defaults or
| delinquencies in Germany. That's quite different from a credit
| rating in the US sense that you can build up by consistently
| borrowing and repaying over time.
|
| When I moved to Berlin after having lived in London, my Schufa
| was thus as pristine as possible - simply because I had no German
| credit history to begin with.
| pintxo wrote:
| They do calculate a score, for use by their customers, which
| also includes your credit history. But if you don't have any,
| well.
| heffer wrote:
| I do feel they are increasingly modelling themselves after the
| US system, seemingly only impeded by stricter data protection
| laws. Schufa, as you said, used to be mostly the exchange of
| negative-only debtor information (i.e. Schufa having no
| information about you is a good sign for your
| creditworthiness). I'd say in the last 15 years (or so) we've
| arrived at the point where Schufa having no information about
| you is about as bad as having negative information. Exactly
| like in the US. The only difference being that for their main
| consumer product you are still fine to get the "Nothing
| negative to report" document, as that is what's accepted by
| most landlords.
| changethe wrote:
| they have many different scores.
|
| the main consumer-facing score is what you are describing,
| which is never used by their customers.
|
| for customers (banks,insurances, retail companies etc.) they
| have scores tailored to their industry (branchenscore), which
| also includes repaid loans etc.
|
| the "basisscore" is pretty much useless, it's only a number
| given out to consumers.
| changethe wrote:
| in case you speak german: i wrote up an article about their
| scoring some time ago.
|
| in the following section i talk a little bit about the
| differences between "branchenscores" and the "basisscore":
| https://onlinekredit.com/schufa-scoring#der-schufa-
| basisscor...
| ArmandGrillet wrote:
| Finally. Germany combines some of the worst aspects of the US
| (credit ranking, complicated abortion process, private healthcare
| if you want decent treatments) with the worst aspects of Europe
| (low digitalization, high taxation, recursive federalism: within
| the country and within the EU).
|
| A country like the Netherlands has its own issues (mainly
| housing) but doesn't have the myriad of pain points you can find
| in Germany like Schufa, anti-customer contract rules, or public
| healthcare inaccessible despite paying more than 400EUR/month for
| it as a single individual.
| tietjens wrote:
| Hello from Germany. No lies detected. Don't forget about a
| working culture where process always ranks above results, and
| leaders commonly lack confidence to make pragmatic decisions.
| odiroot wrote:
| > Don't forget about a working culture where process always
| ranks above results,
|
| And where tenure ranks above skills or experience. Especially
| if unions are involved.
| anovikov wrote:
| Well, this working culture makes result slow and expensive,
| and as a result, in many cases uncompetitive, but it does a
| good job of avoiding fuckups and while slow and expensive,
| things usually get done predictably, on time and on budget.
| Which probably makes it better than American reckless "fake
| it till you make it" approach in most of the complex
| projects.
| freshbob wrote:
| No, it absolutely does not. It might have in the past, when
| industry was booming in Germany and setup costs were huge
| and mistakes were very, very expensive. However, they've
| pretty much lost the race when it comes to software and
| digitalization, where setup cost is pretty much non-
| existent, mistakes are inexpensive (fail early, fail fast),
| and ROI are generally multiples of 100%.
| anovikov wrote:
| I had an experience with a German client in a software
| project. It freaked the hell out of me with slowness of
| decisionmaking, long contract every point of which as it
| turned out, was material, in a nutshell it was a 50/50
| coding vs lawyer job and took 5x the time same thing
| would take with an American client. It also made me next
| to no profit.
|
| But, unlike a lot of things we write for Americans, that
| one turned out to be actually workable, usable in their
| (rather large) product, and runs happily to this day
| almost 5 years later. I count it as a success and
| attribute it mainly to this boring, overly conservative
| and procedure-ridden work process.
|
| But yes, i agree, that for software projects, virtues of
| this approach are more limited than in "hard"
| engineering, and probably do not outweigh downsides in
| many cases.
| tietjens wrote:
| I am familiar with this response but I can't take it
| seriously. The country is looking at something like -0.4%
| growth this year. "On time and on budget" really? Like the
| Berlin airport? Like the digitalization budget that hasn't
| been spent? There is no spirit of pragmatism here. Only a
| fear of not following the rules.
| robert_foss wrote:
| This is entirely correct. Having lived both in North America
| and Sweden this is a very accurate description.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| > _public healthcare inaccessible despite paying more than
| 400EUR /month for it as a single individual._
|
| That's a pretty new thing though (been getting worse for the
| last 10 yrs). And the person responsible for the legislature
| that caused this change is the current health minister.
|
| Also... 400EUR? It's a percentage of your salary. And you're
| omitting that the employer pays the same amount, so you're
| effectively paying 800EUR at the very least.
| generic92034 wrote:
| > And the person responsible for the legislature that caused
| this change is the current health minister.
|
| Could you please explain that a bit more?
| ffsm8 wrote:
| He revamped pretty much evey monetary incentive a few years
| ago, which directly caused the "gold rush" privatization of
| hospitals etc, making a lot of treatments uneconomical.
| There has been a lot of coverage about it over the years -
| both by official channels and independent YouTubers and
| journalists, I'm not going to do it justice by summarizing
| it in a comment here.
|
| A somewhat recent German video (2yrs old) is "Pflege
| katastrophe - exposed". But ARTE , DW and ZDF all have
| reported on it at this point
|
| The controversy about diabetis patients getting amputations
| over simple treatments is a pretty well known symptom of
| this revamp, as operations get a very high payout
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > you're effectively paying 800EUR at the very least.
|
| That makes it worse! Not better.
| jonp888 wrote:
| It's a collective payment system whereby everyone receives
| the same treatment, but high earners subsidize low earners,
| students and pensioners. Whether that is a good idea or not
| is of course a matter of debate, but it doesn't make sense
| to compare the benefits with the cost because they are not
| linked.
|
| If you are a really high earner you can opt out and pay a
| private risk-based premium instead.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The original commenter was complaining that he was paying
| EUR400 per month and not getting adequate service for
| what he is paying. Somebody else mentions that he's
| actually paying EUR800 per month (and not getting
| adequate service). That makes it even worse, and I'm
| surprised if somebody can not understand that.
| bombcar wrote:
| But as a higher earner he's paying 800EUR so that someone
| poorer can pay 100EUR and not get adequate service. ;)
|
| As an American I choose to ignore this and pretend that
| everywhere else has perfect healthcare and government.
| chmod775 wrote:
| From that amount I can tell they're at or near the
| maximum amount you _can_ pay (a software dev salary will
| usually get you there). It currently tops out at 421,76
| Euro and doesn 't increase any further from there.
|
| Many people at that income bracket opt for private
| insurance, because it will be cheaper and provide you
| better care.
| blackmoon42 wrote:
| Cheaper, when you are young and single. Get a family and
| pay for every member. Get older and see your rates
| increasing. Also the rates won't drop if you're a
| pensioner.
|
| You need to know your future, as it's more or less a
| decision for life.
| asymmetric wrote:
| > Also... 400EUR? It's a percentage of your salary. And
| you're omitting that the employer pays the same amount, so
| you're effectively paying 800EUR at the very least.
|
| Not everybody is employed.
| Aerroon wrote:
| If you're not employed then aren't you expected to pay both
| halves yourself?
| fabian2k wrote:
| It is paid by the social security system in that case. If
| you're self-employed then you will have to pay both parts
| yourself.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Ah, that's nicer than here. In my EU country you just
| don't get healthcare if it's not paid. Funnily enough you
| can't just go and pay it either, it has to come through
| something like a job.
| jonp888 wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised you would consider the credit system the
| same as the US. It doesn't have the bonkers bit of the US
| system where you have to take great care to be in a small
| amount of debt even if you don't need to be, in order to
| "prove" your creditworthiness so that you can be in a lot of
| debt later.
| bombcar wrote:
| Being in debt to build credit is mostly a fairy tale told by
| the companies - just having an open line of credit is all you
| need to provide account age. You don't need to use it or
| carry a balance (you may need to use it periodically to keep
| it open but that can be charge/pay off immediately).
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's starting to creep into public services. You couldn't
| even get easy access to Covid stimulus funds without a credit
| card. Debit cards were rejected despite providing the same
| level of ID verification.
| devmor wrote:
| At what point did you need to use a credit card to receive
| your economic stimulus payment? I simply confirmed my most
| recent tax year information when I claimed mine.
| albert180 wrote:
| That's utter bullshit. Your quality of care in the hospital is
| exactly the same as with public health insurance. Also
| sometimes private insurance is even worse when it comes to
| addiction and psychological treatments
| hocuspocus wrote:
| You're treated the same in big hospitals but when I was in
| Berlin, private vs public meant I could get an appointment at
| a dermatologist tomorrow instead of in two months.
| tietjens wrote:
| This is not true. Private insurance means better care in
| hospitals in Germany. Better access to appointments, choice
| of head/experienced doctors, even can mean better rooms.
| Trollmann wrote:
| No, it means you may potentially have all of those but
| there is no guarantee. Neither is there a guarantee that a
| publicly insured person wouldn't receive the same
| treatment. E.g. if there aren't any free "better/worse"
| rooms what are they supposed to do? Many of these are
| nowadays covered by employers as a benefit or for cheap
| (~5EUR) out of pocket if you want.
|
| Private insurance matters most for specialists that don't
| (aren't allowed to) have (or want) a public insurance
| license.
| albert180 wrote:
| You know, I'm a med student, so I have a bit more
| experience :) The Head/Experienced Doctor is still letting
| the Learning Doctor doing everything and pops in only for
| the visit. Also the "standard" Patients get also checked by
| a Oberarzt regularly. The difference is miniscule. The
| Rooms are sometimes nicer I agree, but the care you get is
| still 100% the same. The Hospital also doesn't get extra
| money for the treatment besides the Fee for the "Chefarzt"
| and the nicer room. Otherwise they'll only get the same DRG
| payout as for a "public patient"
| ArmandGrillet wrote:
| Just open Doctolib and tell me it's the same when looking for
| any kind of doctor. The difference in waiting time is 3
| months, bare minimum.
| Ringz wrote:
| I just opened Doctolib and did a test with a dermatologist.
| The difference between private insurance was 23.5.2024 and
| public insurance 5.6.2024. That makes 13 days and not "3
| months bare minimum".
|
| https://0x0.st/HnBZ.png https://0x0.st/HnBN.png
| albert180 wrote:
| Also if your primary doctor determines that you need an
| urgent appointment, they can give you a priority code,
| which gives you a quick appointment, since those visits
| are paid on top of the regular budget for the specialist
| fabian2k wrote:
| That's an overly negative and hyperbolic view. Nothing is
| entirely wrong here, but you're painting every single point in
| the most negative way possible.
|
| You can certainly argue about how good the healthcare system is
| in the end, but it isn't categorically inaccessible. And if you
| pay 400 EUR/month you're earning enough money and can choose
| the private health system if you prefer that.
|
| The credit ranking also works in very different ways than in
| the US, so I wouldn't compare them directly. I'm not sure what
| you mean by anti-consumer contract rules.
| panki27 wrote:
| While choosing to be in the private system is an option, it
| only "makes sense" if you make at least 70kEUR a year, so
| definitly not for everyone.
|
| The issue is not getting in - but getting back out before you
| retire and don't have enough available income to pay the
| rates anymore.
| fabian2k wrote:
| If you pay ~400 EUR for the public healthcare you make 70k
| or more.
|
| The cost for public healthcare is scaled by income, and is
| limited around 400 EUR. It's a bit higher now, but I would
| suspect that the OP is not necessarily talking about the
| most current values here and is hitting the older limit and
| therefore earning more than the "Beitragsbemessungsgrenze".
| miroljub wrote:
| The limit is ~900 EUR per month, not ~400 EUR. People
| frequently forget the employer matching, which at the end
| comes from your pocket, since it's mandatory.
|
| Also Freelancers and self-employed need to pay full
| contribution of 900 EUR, not "just" a half.
| cycomanic wrote:
| No the employers contribution doesn't come out of your
| pocket. The employers contribution comes out of the
| employers pocket and is the cost of doing business.
| That's like arguing the rent for the office space or even
| the warehouse or servers come out of your salary. Your
| salary is essentially a function of supply and demand and
| not a function of cost. I mean, if external costs would
| influence salary we'd see remote workers earn more than
| on site ones, because employers save on office rent. In
| reality it's more likely to be that remote workers have a
| lower salary.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If you're paying 400 EUR for public healthcare, shouldn't
| you receive good healthcare for that? Why is private
| healthcare even in the discussion? Why does the public
| option suck?
| mns wrote:
| Even if you get in, it's scummy. Once you get to a certain
| age, the payments are crazy. Not to mention people "selling
| it", like a colleague of mine got scammed into going
| private, he had some eye issues a couple of years before,
| and when the issue came back, the insurance refused to pay
| because it was an existing condition, making his treatment
| unaffordable and having to literally quit, leave the
| country for a while and come back just to get back to
| public.
| oytis wrote:
| Is Netherlands healthcare better? From what I've heard from
| people having lived in both countries, German healthcare is
| more accessible. E.g. in Netherlands you can't see a specialist
| doctor unless you convinced your GP you absolutely have to -
| which can be hard at times.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm 58 and not exactly in the best of health. I've had to
| rely on healthcare in NL quite a few times over the last 20
| years or so and all of those were serious cases. I have
| nothing to complain about, but that's n=1. To increment that
| n a bit: I know _lots_ of people here and almost all of them
| have had some health issues over the years and the vast
| majority of those have been dealt with in a serious and
| reasonably effective manner.
|
| Where NL is utterly ineffective is when it comes to vague
| symptoms. Until it is perfectly clear what is wrong you're
| going to be seriously frustrated because the diagnostic
| machinery isn't really all that effective, when in other
| countries they'd spend a fortune to find out what's wrong
| with you in NL unless it's 100% clear you're going to have a
| hard time getting the care that you need.
|
| I blame Calvijn, NL seems to have a misplaced sense of
| reduced expression of emotion resulting in an expectation to
| tough things out rather than to deal with them and for some
| reason doctors seem to see complaints without a direct
| relatable cause as an attack of hysterics rather than as
| something to investigate. If you come from a different
| background you're going to find this a very difficult thing
| to deal with.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > the diagnostic machinery isn't really all that effective,
| when in other countries they'd spend a fortune to find out
| what's wrong with you in NL unless it's 100% clear you're
| going to have a hard time getting the care that you need.
|
| What other countries are those?
| Unfrozen0688 wrote:
| >when in other countries they'd spend a fortune to find out
| what's wrong with you in NL unless it's 100% clear you're
| going to have a hard time getting the care that you need.
|
| Sweden here, I hear the same things. I have had good
| experiences with health care here as my problems have been
| "normal" and straight forward.
|
| But what other countries? Really, name one.
|
| Same with computers.
|
| You want to fix a straight forward problem or a vague one?
| sofixa wrote:
| > Europe (low digitalization, high taxation, recursive
| federalism: within the country and within the EU).
|
| A decent chunk of those are exclusive to Germany, or at least
| far from the norm in the EU or Europe in general. For instance
| digitalisation varies wildly between countries, but Germany is
| definitely one of the most embarrassingly behind countries.
| Taxation also varies (e.g. Bulgaria and Estonia have flat
| income taxes). Federalism isn't a thing in most European
| countries too.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > or public healthcare inaccessible despite paying more than
| 400EUR/month for it as a single individual.
|
| This is super close to my early 2010's ACA experiences. Even
| when a poor earner could scrape up enough to buy a plan, the
| deductible made it unusable.
|
| Policy pricing was exorbitant for $12k/yr earners but dropped
| enough for 22k/yr that a few plans were buyable. The challenge
| was coming up with another $somethingthousand to cover the
| deductible.
|
| There was a sharp drop-off in plan pricing at 32k/yr and some
| mid-grade plans were in reach. IIRC deductibles were lower on
| those plans and they may have been usable (or nearly so).
|
| What struck then. Of the news orgs cheering/damning the ACA,
| zero of them ever covered how pricing dropped as income rose. I
| assume that's because pricing was only ever disclosed to folks
| who completed the lengthy signup process - and news folks found
| it too daunting to experiment with.
| fabian2k wrote:
| There are no real deductibles in German public healthcare,
| though some areas are excluded almost entirely like glasses
| and certain dental work. The cost is also scaled to income,
| the 400 EUR (which is only 50% of the cost, the other 50%
| pays the employer) here are what you pay when you earn ~70k
| EUR per year and are essentially the maximum for public
| health care. So it is much cheaper if you earn less money.
|
| One of the main current criticisms of the system is that it
| can be very difficult to get appointments with specialists
| compared to people with private health insurance.
| dkekenflxlf wrote:
| Bro, du solltest mal deine Gehaltsabrechnung prufen - mit
| dem Gehalt bist du bei knapp 1000EUR
| fabian2k wrote:
| I used the values from the original post, which is only
| the employee part and not the employer part. I also
| assumed that they're not using current but slightly older
| values here. I also didn't include the PPV, if you
| include that and count the employer part you end up at
| 1000 EUR.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Healthcare is kinda shit in The Netherlands. Long waiting lists
| even for simple things. Never actually prescribing medication
| but instead over prescribing paracetamol. Only being able to
| get a set amount for appointments regardless of actual need.
|
| Sure if you're in a car crash and urgently need care they will
| help you without going bankrupt but anything less urgent good
| luck getting an appointment this week / month / year
| karpour wrote:
| This, not nearly as bad in the US, but a mess of private
| insurances.
| njarboe wrote:
| A mess of private insurances, partial payment by the
| government of private insurance based on income, and then
| full (or almost full) government payment based on veteran
| status, income, and age. It's more complicated than this of
| course.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Does The Netherlands not have Urgent Care facilities like the
| US? I feel like those for of facilities could handle the
| issues of a lack of access for simple or menial things. I had
| to get a cyst lanced a few weeks ago and I just walked into
| an Urgent Care by my house and was in and out in about an
| hour with no appointment. I think it was about $180 since I
| didn't have insurance.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I am dutch and have lived in quite a few countries in the eu
| and se asia: I would prefer to never have to deal with NL
| healthcare services again compared to other countries. And I
| have been (unfortunately) been in hospitals, a lot. Since the
| 90s NL is striving to become little USA policy wise and this
| is still getting worse. It's a shit show.
| ciclotrone wrote:
| I find it quite disturbing that high taxation is seen as a
| negative aspect of Europe. I lived in Italy, France and
| Germany, and I enjoyed public healthcare and education of very
| high standard at very affordable prices, and free in the limit
| that one cannot afford to pay for them.
|
| As a relative of a person with a chronic disease I can tell you
| that on the one hand if we are not bankrupt it is because of
| public healthcare, and on the other I'm proud of contributing
| through my taxes so that anybody in need can have the same
| treatment irrespective of their economic situation.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| High taxes with no matching value behind them is undeniably a
| negative.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yes, that's my problem with high taxation, as someone who
| got burnt by it by virtue of living and paying taxes in the
| UK.
|
| I don't mind paying my fair share of tax if it means I get
| good value out of it, but the state of our healthcare here
| means that in practice the public healthcare system is no
| longer fit for purpose, so we are being forced to pay for a
| system that doesn't work and end up having to go private
| (and thus pay again) when we do need timely healthcare.
|
| I am generally in favor of fair, progressive taxation to
| ensure everyone has a good social safety net, but the
| taxation should be fair (it's no longer the case in the UK,
| since tax brackets haven't been adjusted for inflation) and
| the services paid for by those taxes should provide good
| value.
|
| The danger with services funded by taxes as opposed to a
| private enterprise operating in a free market is that
| private enterprises are bound by competitive pressure - if
| they are delivering terrible service and stuffing their
| pockets with the money, you are free not to do business
| with them and a potential competitor (that stuffs their
| pockets a little less) can come along and get your business
| instead.
|
| With tax-funded services, this pressure doesn't exist, so
| there's no incentive for politicians (and everyone else in
| the value chain) to deliver good service, since people
| generally can't opt out of taxes. This means that even if a
| service is _currently_ good, there 's no guarantee it will
| remain so since the pressure for it to remain isn't there.
| Thus, when you see high taxation, it's reasonable to be
| worried whether the service provided by those taxes is any
| good and whether it will remain so in the future.
| mint2 wrote:
| Except there's a lot of services that are unsuited to
| being delivered by competitive markets as it's nearly
| impossible to prevent monopolization.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Agreed, although this can be addressed by appropriate
| regulation. However, the ultimate issue is that the
| government should do its job well, and whether it's the
| task of adequately regulating a market vs providing the
| service itself, the problem that there's no pressure it
| to do it well still remains.
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| Somehow in the USA these theoretical competitors that
| lower the profit margin and provide better service seem
| not to materialize. We end up with whole industries all
| of whose participants are funneling money to the
| executives and investors at the expense of customers and
| society. It's such a broad issue that half of inflation
| is attributed to this corporate greed which is not being
| mitigated by the invisible hand of capitalist
| competition.
|
| Without proper regulation and enforcement capitalism
| devolves to monopolies and oligopolies and eliminate
| competition and subdue market forces.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| private enterprise is not "bound by competitive
| pressure". Companies only compete by virtue of the
| government forcing them to. Are you arguing that humans,
| inventors of civilization, are too stupid to figure out
| how to cooperate?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I disagree that companies only compete thanks to
| regulation. Companies competing is the default -
| regulation sometimes (either as an unintended oversight
| or malicious intent thanks to lobbying/corruption)
| prevents it though.
|
| There are many valid scenarios where competition is
| lacking, but generally speaking the reason it's lacking
| is due to regulation/law making it impossible.
|
| Telecoms for example is impossible because the incumbents
| have exclusive control of the physical infrastructure
| (poles/ducts under the street) or spectrum auctions where
| the price makes it impossible for a new entrant to enter.
|
| Tech network effects are maintained by copyright law
| being abused to prevent adversarial interoperability.
| graemep wrote:
| > Companies competing is the default
|
| If you had no regulation, they would simply form cartels
| or merge to create a monopoly.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Merging and forming cartels is still technically a
| _choice_. A company _could_ decide not to do that and
| compete. It may require a near-infinite amount of money,
| but it 's still technically possible.
| 261582335426158 wrote:
| The key point to add is that (at least) 2 points must be
| true for this positive side of market to show:
|
| 1) There should be "forces" counterbalancing the move
| toward monopolies
|
| 2) It should be okay for the service to fail/die and/or
| it should degrade gracefully.
|
| For example book publishing is a wonderful field that can
| gain from free market dynamics while prison management is
| a _terrible_ field for free market dynamics.
|
| While a dying publishing enterprise might print less
| books at a lower quality with deceptive marketing (and
| that is sorta okay) a dying prison management enterprise
| will squeeze every ounce of dignity/health/safety out of
| its wards.
|
| Market dynamics for the economy are analogous to natural
| selection for evolution: both can produce wonderful
| things but they will require many more to die horribly.
|
| This is not a statement against markets but I am calling
| for this tradeoff to be considered along with many other.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The same factor that makes private prisons problematic
| also makes taxation problematic - in both cases you've
| got a captive market that can't opt out thus no pressure
| to provide a good, efficient service. In a hypothetical
| world where inmates could choose whether to remain in
| prison and which one to be in, private prisons would be
| competing for service quality. Actually we've got that,
| they're just called "hotels".
|
| I wonder if the solution there would be to force
| politicians and everyone involved to exclusively use
| government-provided services - so as a condition of going
| into politics, you can't use private healthcare, your
| kids can't go to private schools, and you need to spend a
| day every year in a random prison and so on. Then it
| would mean the decision-makers got at least some
| incentive to make sure these services are functional and
| fit for purpose.
| autoexec wrote:
| > The same factor that makes private prisons problematic
| also makes taxation problematic - in both cases you've
| got a captive market that can't opt out thus no pressure
| to provide a good, efficient service.
|
| What you _should_ have are companies that offer their
| best prices /services to the government out of fear that
| they'll be passed over and those highly valuable
| contracts will be awarded to their competitors who do
| better. Governments are incentivized to select the best
| companies to award those contracts to because they risk
| being voted out if people are unhappy with the level of
| service they're getting for their tax dollars.
|
| Prisoners can't kick politicians out of office when
| they're unhappy about the state of the prisons so that's
| a huge issue with prisons in general, but private prisons
| have another issue which is profit. Whatever it costs to
| keep dangerous people locked up, private prisons need all
| of that money plus they must extract a bunch of extra
| money from the public just to stuff their pockets with.
| If private prisons want to keep prices low to the public
| but also want to keep filling their pockets with money
| they need to provide substandard care to the people they
| are responsible for. A non-private prison needs only what
| it costs to do the job and nothing more.
| graemep wrote:
| The UK tax system (like many others) is not as fair or
| progressive as it is presented to be.
|
| 1. NI means that the real standard rate on earned income
| is substantially higher than the "income tax" rate. it is
| also not fair that unearned income is exempt from it. 2.
| Lots of purchase taxes, which are disproportionately paid
| by people with moderate incomes. People on low incomes
| spend a higher proportion in necessities which are
| (rightly) subject to lower levels. The more money you
| have (beyond a certain point) the less you spend on
| things subject to these taxes. 3. Too many loopholes.
|
| > so we are being forced to pay for a system that doesn't
| work and end up having to go private (and thus pay again)
| when we do need timely healthcare.
|
| Some of the NHS is good. NHS dentists can be very hard to
| find and waiting lists are long. Waiting times can be
| long too. Reform is prevented by the fear of a US type
| system and I think many people think that is the only
| alternative (and seem not to realise how things operate
| in most other developed countries).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > seem not to realise how things operate in most other
| developed countries
|
| Genuine question, what do other countries do differently?
| The way I see it (and described in my original comment)
| is that the underlying factors behind the decline of
| government services (no accountability, no incentive to
| use tax money efficiently) are common across many
| countries.
|
| Some countries may get away with it for now because
| they're still "early", but if there is no pressure to do
| well it's just a matter of time before they too suffer
| the same fate?
| cycomanic wrote:
| I'd argue that the decline in quality of services as been
| a phenomenon across many western countries and to
| significant degree been caused by a economic idiology and
| a deliberate campaign with a goal of privatisation of
| many public goods, started in the 1980s.
|
| Essentially funding to services are being reduced to pay
| for tax reductions, until at some point the quality
| declines significantly, which is taken as the argument
| that private enterprise would deliver a much better
| service at lower cost. Services/infrastructure are then
| sold and a low price and after a short while costs for
| services go up, but because they are now private
| enterprises raising prices it is "the market".
|
| The reason why the UK is worse I believe it's due to the
| political system which results in essentially 2 dominant
| parties with very little differences.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| Unless you want to get into the nitty gritty of economic
| policy analysis and measuring market externalities, value
| of public goods is pretty subjective. A healthy person
| might not see much value in public healthcare and a single
| adult with no kids might not care about education. Just
| because you don't value something in the same way doesn't
| mean it's not highly valued by the people who voted on and
| implemented the policies.
| jimcsharp wrote:
| My neighbors suck less when they're warm, full, and
| healthy. How do the anti tax folks get past that hurdle?
| I'm trying to live my most evil life here but I'm stuck
| on very selfishly wanting cool neighbors.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > High taxes with no matching value behind them
|
| That is not the case for Germany. We have - even with all
| its shortcomings - a decent education system that's largely
| free and accessible for everyone, a decent healthcare
| system, a decent public transport system on local, regional
| and federal system, and a very decent social security
| network that covers unemployment, pension and elderly care.
|
| The US in contrast has neither: parents have to pay five
| digits worth of money just for the birth of a child, pay
| through their nose for insurance, public schools are
| horribly underfunded, universities require six digits worth
| of debt, there's no high-speed rail worth the name, if
| you're unemployed you better have some savings, you have to
| take care about your 401k, and the best way if you need
| elderly care is to off yourself with a gun.
|
| The only thing where the US actually _is_ in front of
| Germany is allowing you to get a gun to off yourself. Here
| in Germany, it 's almost impossible to own a gun, so people
| love to off themselves by jumping in front of a train,
| creating a huge mess for everyone else.
| greenavocado wrote:
| INOVA in Northern Virginia charges $3000 for an
| uncomplicated vaginal birth. They have a code which rolls
| up many services into that code. There are additional in-
| hospital expenses such as the newborn hearing test which
| aggregate to about $400. If you have insurance your
| maximum cost out of pocket for the calendar year is
| between 5 and 15 thousand dollars (insurance covers
| everything above it). If you can't pay it all at once
| there are charities and payment plans you can discuss
| with the provider. If you don't have insurance you can
| possibly negotiate the bill down sometimes drastically or
| if necessary declare Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy if you
| really can't pay the bills. Bankruptcy sounds scarier
| than it really is. Chapter 7 bankruptcy lasts about 3
| months and Chapter 13 bankruptcy lasts about 5 years
| during which you pay everything above your normal average
| household expenses to a special account for the
| creditors. Medical debt is unsecured debt and can be
| defaulted on and purged by the court following bankruptcy
| proceedings. Bankruptcy is much more problematic in
| Europe for the individual. Americans can keep their
| assets in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Health insurance in
| America costs between $500-$1000 a month for an entire
| family.
| lupire wrote:
| Why do I pay $25K/yr for my family? Is yours high
| deductible?
| greenavocado wrote:
| 6,000 dollar deductible per person with total 15,000
| dollar out of pocket maximum for the family. My current
| health plan is better because my company found a partner
| that aggregates many smaller companies to get better
| rates from insurers. Before this I was uninsured and
| would call many different providers to negotiate the best
| cash price for various procedures such as wrist MRI with
| contrast. I got cash quotes ranging from $850 to $3500
| and got exactly what I needed from a local provider for
| $850. I called up several providers in Canada and they
| offered similar cash prices (on the low end) so it wasn't
| worth the 8 hour drive each way.
| dkekenflxlf wrote:
| 500-1000 USD per month for a WHOLE family is fucking
| cheap!?
|
| In Germany, i'm paying more than 1150EUR per month as
| single (and im not privately insured but publicly)
| pflenker wrote:
| 1) I doubt that you pay as much. I pay less than half of
| that and have a comfortable salary. Did you include the
| "Arbeitgeberanteil" (which is not part of what you are
| paying)? 2) You can't easily extrapolate that number to a
| whole family. Kids are usually insured for free if the
| higher-earning parent is not privately insured.
| shasts wrote:
| This is quite possible, right?
|
| For eg: if you work for a Swiss or US employer and make
| more than 69k(?), say 100k, as a freelancer, and have a
| family, you have to pay around 14%(upper limit somewhere
| around 1000) of the income as health insurance
| contribution.
|
| I think it is costly. It is difficult to digest for me
| that the health insurance costs more than housing.
| greenavocado wrote:
| No, this is on par with what my friends in Germany pay
| for their family. The difference is Germans have nearly
| no deductible and there is little worry about in-network
| vs out-of-network treatments.
| rusticpenn wrote:
| I think the upper limit is 800EUR
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| 1150? That's literally impossible. The current maximum is
| about 1050. See "2024 Hochstbeitrag GKV inkl.
| Pflegeversicherung (ohne Kinder)".
| Ringz wrote:
| > INOVA in Northern Virginia charges $3000 for an
| uncomplicated vaginal birth. They have a code which rolls
| up many services into that code. There are additional in-
| hospital expenses such as the newborn hearing test which
| aggregate to about $400.
|
| Free of charge in Germany
|
| > If you have insurance your maximum cost out of pocket
| for the calendar year is between 5 and 15 thousand
| dollars (insurance covers everything above it).
|
| In Germany, insurance covers everything over 0EUR. It
| depends on the insurance whether you have to pay extra
| for individual treatments (treatment methods without, or
| with disputed scientific evidence) or not. Rarely more
| than 100EUR. If expenses for illnesses exceed a certain
| amount in a year (about 3000EUR), it can be deducted from
| taxes.
|
| > Health insurance in America costs between $500-$1000 a
| month for an entire family.
|
| In Germany, it depends on your income how much the
| insurance costs for the entire family. 500-1000EUR is
| also possible in Germany. But without all the extra
| expenses, negotiations with doctors, clinic, insurer, and
| bankruptcies...
| staringback wrote:
| > Free of charge in Germany
|
| Paid solely by taxes instead of some taxes and some out
| of pocket
| Beijinger wrote:
| "In Germany, insurance covers everything over 0EUR. "
|
| Yes. But you wait >6 months to see a specialist. And
| Germany has not the same level of health care than the
| US. Sorry to break the news to you.
| Ringz wrote:
| Not 6 months:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39395329
|
| Yes, Germany has not the same level of health care. Most
| of the time it's better than the US. According to studies
| and data. All sources are not from Germany:
|
| https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-
| collection/quality...
|
| https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-
| briefs/2...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/bes
| t-h...
|
| ,,Germany would have tied Switzerland had we averaged our
| rankings of the nations instead of using head-to-head
| matchups in a bracket system (Switzerland eliminated
| Germany in the first round). It's an example of how close
| the voting was."
|
| Wow!
|
| Sorry to break the news to you.
| Beijinger wrote:
| "Not 6 months"
|
| I don't care what the internet says. I know from my own
| experience it is 6 months, at least for some categories.
| Some sources say 30 days. A joke! I could call the office
| of my average XYZ doctor now and ask. And it will be 6
| months, for sure.
|
| "Most of the time it's better than the US. "
|
| The US has a lower live expectancy. Whatever the reasons
| may be. While this is concerning and not good, as long as
| you have a good insurance, Germany can not match the
| standard of US health care. Trust me on that one. With
| dentists it may be a different thing.
|
| Yes, if you are poor or unemployed, your access to health
| care is likely much better than in the USA. But
| otherwise, not so much.
| mk89 wrote:
| Not sure where you live. I (and the people I know, some
| of them 65+) never had to wait for 6 months - even for
| surgeries. And I can speak about a decently wide range of
| categories.
|
| You also mention "at least for some categories", then you
| mention that "you could call the average XYZ doctor", as
| it that was applying to all categories. You seem to be
| generalising out of emotions, to be honest.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > In Germany, insurance covers everything over 0EUR.
| [...] If expenses for illnesses exceed a certain amount
| in a year (about 3000EUR), it can be deducted from taxes
|
| But how can you have anything to deduct if insurance
| covers everything over $0?
| Ringz wrote:
| You can go to a private doctor even if you are not in a
| ,,private insurance" and pay him by yourself
| (Selbstzahler). He can prescribe meds which are not
| covered by the public insurance. So you have to pay them
| by yourself. That's just one example.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > INOVA in Northern Virginia charges $3000 for an
| uncomplicated vaginal birth.
|
| In Germany _all_ of that is being covered by the
| government insurance scheme. The only thing you have to
| pay is stuff like a private room for postnatal recovery
| time [1]. Oh and you get a very long time paid post birth
| to recover and bond with your child. No such nonsense as
| giving birth and having to work the next day like it 's
| common in the US.
|
| > If you have insurance your maximum cost out of pocket
| for the calendar year is between 5 and 15 thousand
| dollars (insurance covers everything above it).
|
| We don't have that at all, insurance covers everything,
| you never even see a bill or have to deal with stuff like
| "in network". The only thing is a 5-10EUR co-pay per
| prescription (utter nonsense if you ask me, it was
| introduced as a "cost control" measure to prevent people
| from... diverting medication? idk, it's ridiculous but
| small enough that it's harmless).
|
| > Bankruptcy is much more problematic in Europe for the
| individual. Americans can keep their assets in a Chapter
| 13 bankruptcy.
|
| Agreed on that one. It's also a _huge_ contributing
| factor into why Americans have it easier to start up side
| hustles.
|
| > Health insurance in America costs between $500-$1000 a
| month for an entire family.
|
| Assuming I were the sole earner and my wife would be a
| SAHM with an arbitrary number of children, I'd (at a
| gross wage of 52k/y) pay 340EUR a month to health
| insurance and my employer another 340EUR, so in total
| (including a per-insurance surcharge of, in my case, .5%)
| my healthcare costs are _capped_ at about 700EUR - for
| all of us.
|
| On top of that we'd get, like all parents in Germany,
| "Kindergeld" of 250EUR/month per childpaid by the
| government to assist in child rearing.
|
| Pretty awesome if you ask me. I honestly don't know how
| y'all survive.
|
| [1] https://www.eltern.de/kosten-geburt
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| > In Germany all of that is being covered by the
| government insurance scheme.
|
| Ok, but you agree, don't you, that $3000 is quite
| different from "parents have to pay five digits worth of
| money just for the birth of a child"? That is off by an
| order of magnitude.
|
| > No such nonsense as giving birth and having to work the
| next day like it's common in the US.
|
| I think you should stop consuming so much media from
| Russia Today :) Or maybe re-consider the trustworthiness
| of wherever you read that.
|
| The fact is that, at the federal level, Americans may
| take 12 weeks (unpaid) time off work after giving birth
| under the FMLA, and it is prohibited to retaliate against
| an employee for taking that time.
|
| Additionally, the majority of Americans live in states
| which mandate _paid_ time off after giving birth,
| (usually 8 to 12 weeks) plus additional unpaid time.
| California, to use the most populous state as an example,
| mandates 8 weeks of paid time, plus 28 weeks unpaid. New
| York, on the opposite side of the country, goes even
| farther by mandating 12 weeks paid time.
|
| Part of the reason you may be confused is that this is
| not always explicitly named as "maternity time". It is
| often called as "disability leave", and nearly all
| disability statutes include recovery from pregnancy as a
| disability.
|
| Unless you are maybe trying to argue that Europeans are
| legally prohibited to work the day after giving birth,
| you are way off base here.
| albert180 wrote:
| If Access to Health Care in the US is so great, why is
| infant mortality worse than in Cuba and they score dead
| last in every Health or Life Expectancy Metric among the
| G7?
| staringback wrote:
| Have you seen the health of an average American?
| greenavocado wrote:
| In case you haven't noticed, the demographics of America
| have changed a little bit since 1990.
|
| We also have a small problem with fentanyl.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| It's a little more subtle than this, and of course
| subtlety is doesn't play well these days, but the US
| stats vary greatly across geography and ethnic lines.
| Cuba isn't a great comparison, beyond the shock of
| "they're worse than a bunch of commies!"
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| None of these are primarily medical outcomes. Life
| expectancy, for example, is skewed by an anomalously high
| rate of fatal injuries when people are young, which has
| nothing to do with healthcare quality. For better or
| worse, trauma medicine in the US is arguably the best in
| the world _because_ serious injuries are so prevalent.
|
| There is also the practical matter that the US is a
| continent-sized country and regional effects matter. Some
| US States have life expectancy on par with the best
| European countries despite the anomalously high fatal
| injury rates among young people.
| wyre wrote:
| No one should have to declare bankruptcy for birthing a
| child. To suggest it is obscene.
| mikestew wrote:
| I'm sure this was meant as a "oh, it's not so bad in the
| U. S." type post. But I read it, and am reminded of what
| a suck-ass system the U. S. has. Sure, almost everything
| said is true. But let's reiterate:
|
| 1. One might pay up to $15K out-of-pocket for childbirth.
|
| 2. If you can't pay it, you have to go out-of-band to
| seek a non-standard procedure of taking care of the debt.
| The system is not otherwise built to handle a situation
| that's probably pretty common given the expenses
| involved.
|
| 3. If all else fails, file for bankruptcy.
|
| All just to have a child.
|
| What you've described is not "not so bad", but rather the
| plot of a bad movie from the 70s about how corporations
| have taken over the country and we all live in this
| dystopian hell where you have to give all of your assets
| to the corporation to be allowed to have a child. Only
| it's not a bad movie from the 70s, it's the U. S.
| healthcare system.
|
| And I don't know what kind of low-end plan one gets for
| $1000/month for a whole family, but I'd bet real money
| that the deductible would make my eyes water.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Yes, the situation is bad.
|
| Anyway, comparing earning 175k USD to 162.37k EUR:
|
| Germany, married with 2 children, Stay At Home Mom
| Scenario, Tax Category 3, Berlin Region:
|
| Solidarity + Salary Tax is EUR 40.428,00 Pension
| Insurance: 8.314,20 EUR Unemployment Insurance: 1.162,20
| EUR Care Insurance: 900,45 EUR
|
| Total: 50.805 EUR = $54,706 before health insurance
|
| Virginia, USA, same scenario as above, incl. 2 child tax
| credit of $4000, four state exemptions: FICA + Federal +
| State Tax - Child Care Credit: $44,162-$4,000 = $40,162
| before health insurance
|
| Germany costs $14,544 a year more for a family with two
| kids before health insurance. To be fair though, the
| differences are lesser for most Germans, as almost no
| common jobs pay over 120k EUR gross.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| Switzerland does everything better than Germany with far
| less taxes.
|
| And since we're trading anecdotes I've found US
| Healthcare to be the best compared to the 3 european
| countries I've lived in before.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Switzerland does everything better than Germany with
| far less taxes.
|
| They have the advantage that the country is so small. Us
| Germans however have to deal with the fact that we have
| the 5th largest country of Europe of which a lot of is
| settled and has to be supported by the entire population.
|
| And in any case, Swiss taxes aren't _that_ much lower
| than Germany 's either - average tax load in the country
| is ~29% [1], Germany is at 33.9% [2]. Switzerland's total
| load may be even higher because the German figure
| includes social security payments, Statista for
| Switzerland is only taxes.
|
| [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/117614
| 6/umfra...
|
| [2] https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-
| fakten/soziale-situ...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| your second point strikes at the crux: On the whole, the
| US sucks. At the top margin, it's the best in the world.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The US actually has a good pension system relative to
| other developed countries. Retirement plans like 401k,
| IRA, etc are _in addition to_ the pension system, they
| don 't replace it, and are frequently superior to their
| European counterparts both in scope and flexibility.
|
| There is plenty to complain about but pensions and
| retirement is one area that the US does comparatively
| well.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| My initial reaction is - then why is the US leading in so
| many areas, if based on your chracterization it's such a
| laggard? I'd argue it has the best in all categories,
| it's just not close to even distributed. "Decent" is
| completely inadequate for education, healthcare and
| transportation. These are far too important for " good
| enough, usually" solutions.
| Beijinger wrote:
| "a decent education system that's largely free and
| accessible for everyone"
|
| I give your Universities a 2-3 (On a scale 1 Top, 5
| fail). High schools are getting worse and worse due to
| the immigrants. So you would want to send your kid to a
| school without many immigrants, mainly due to language
| barriers.
|
| "a decent healthcare system" Again, I give you a 2-3.
| More and more people are sucking services, fewer people
| pay in. Hey, alone 1 Million Ukrainians are insured,
| while less than 25% have a job. How long do you wait to
| see a specialist? >6 months!
|
| "a decent public transport system on local, regional and
| federal system" Again grade 2-3. You have a functioning
| public transport system. But ask Switzerland what they
| think about it. Or look at China if you want to learn
| something about bullet trains.
|
| "and a very decent social security network that covers
| unemployment, pension and elderly care."
|
| Is on the brink of collapse. Pensions are great. For
| state employees. The rest gets retirement benefits. They
| are compared to the EU very low.
|
| I don't have health insurance by the way. Germany has to
| take care of so many immigrants. Nothing left for me. And
| try to compete with them to find an apartment. The
| government pays for them. And the government is never
| late with payments, hence landlords prefer this.
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| Can you cite your sources?
|
| This literally sounds like regurgitated shit from far-
| right politicians rather than thought-out analysis based
| on real statistics. In fact I would go so far as to
| suspect astroturfing.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Yes sure. For German articles please use google
| translate.
|
| 1. a) 0 Universities among the top 10:
| https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-
| universiti... (In most other rankings, German
| universities rank much worse)
|
| b) sinking high school performance: https://www.oecd.org/
| publication/pisa-2022-results/country-n... The collapse
| coincides with the arrival of refugees under Merkel....
|
| c) Many immigrants in school. Hint: You can't teach math
| or chemistry if the majority of the kids don't speak
| German https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/integration-an-
| manchen-schule...
|
| 2. a) Currently don't find a better article. Biggest
| problem compared to China. Germany has the same tracks
| for bullet trains, local trains and freight trains. Often
| the bullet trains run a 120 or 160 km/h
| https://www.businessinsider.de/tech/warum-es-
| ultraschnelle-z...
|
| b) Switzerland complaining that German late trains
| destroying their time tables:
| https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/schweizer-experte-
| droht-d...
|
| 3.)
|
| a) Waiting for several months (around 6, based on own
| experience) to see a specialist: https://www.sr.de/sr/sr3
| /themen/panorama/saarland_warten_auf...
|
| b) Retirement, as percentage of former income, EU
| comparison: https://www.merkur.de/leben/geld/deutschland-
| rente-vergleich...
|
| Forgot the last point:
|
| 4. Examples https://www.bw24.de/baden-wuerttemberg/neid-
| debatte-vermiete...
| https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/fluechtlinge-dubiose-
| geschaef...
|
| And personal experience from friends of mine who are
| landlords.
| mk89 wrote:
| On a scale 1-5, 2 and 3 are exactly the same as or better
| than "decent". Otherwise the previous poster would have
| said "they are perfect (=1)".
|
| You're being a bit unfair, to be honest.
| alexwhb wrote:
| Agreed. Additionally taxation in our modern Fiat currencies
| is a farce, since the central banks can literally take as
| much buying power as they want from you. Taxation is
| literally just an illusion to make you feel like you are
| directly paying for government services.The real taxation
| is inflation.
| breather wrote:
| Ah that's where the much higher quality of life kicks in.
| Beijinger wrote:
| " I'm proud of contributing through my taxes so that anybody
| in need can have the same treatment irrespective of their
| economic situation."
|
| It is a big world my friend. And if millions come to use
| these services but don't pay in, the services get thinner and
| thinner. 1 Million Ukrainians came to German. Less than 25%
| have a job. The rest is financed by the taxpayer. Money,
| Rent, Health insurance...
|
| Edit:
|
| It reminds me of a Third Reich joke. An old woman goes into a
| map shop and looks at a globe.
|
| She asks the sales person: What is this big blue land on the
| globe?
|
| The sales person says: This is the USA.
|
| Old lady: And this huge Red area, what is this?
|
| The sales person says: This is the Soviet Union.
|
| Old lady: And this tiny brown spot, what is this?
|
| The sales person says: This is our Third Reich.
|
| Old lady: Does the Fuehrer know this?
|
| -----------
|
| I hope you get what I am trying to say.
| mousetree wrote:
| As a German who pays a lot in taxes each year, I'm more
| than happy for those taxes to support our Ukrainian friends
| who are refugees during this terrible situation
| illiac786 wrote:
| The one I have seen are all young women and kids. They will
| cause not even a fraction of the health care costs a 70 or
| 80 year old German generates. I can't find this stat but
| basically it's exponential, one generates more health care
| costs in the last ten years of its life than during its
| entire previous life, on average.
| mk89 wrote:
| > They will cause not even a fraction of the health care
| costs a 70 or 80 year old German generates. I can't find
| this stat but basically it's exponential, one generates
| more health care costs in the last ten years of its life
| than during its entire previous life, on average.
|
| I really don't wanna get into this populist debate, which
| is really annoying lately as it seems to be our biggest
| issue in the world, but ... the 70-80 years old people
| (probably) worked in the country, they contributed to
| their own country, and should be treated with some
| respect or decency and not just as a cost.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| They enjoyed the golden years after WW2 where the economy
| was booming, decent pension starting at reasonable age,
| nobody cared about the environment, people lived like
| there's no tomorrow.
|
| Now the coming generations can deal with the fallout.
| vizzier wrote:
| Adding a source to this claim as it is very valid [0]. I
| cannot find a good overview of the overall demographics
| of the ukranian refugees other than it is mostly women
| and children due to the borders being closed to outgoing
| men. Employment rates will rise as people integrate.
|
| [0] https://www.oecd.org/health/Expenditure-by-disease-
| age-and-g...
| Beijinger wrote:
| In Germany, 75% of Ukrainians don't work. In other EU
| countries, nearly 80% work. It is a question of the
| system and incentives.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > I find it quite disturbing that high taxation is seen as a
| negative aspect of Europe.
|
| High tax rates and, in fact, ANY taxes area a negative.
| However, that negative is (hopefully) offset by the positives
| that the things those taxes go to pay for provide.
| dkural wrote:
| There is no capital gains tax - Germany has less progressive
| taxation than the United States! VAT in general is a
| regressive tax, that many EU countries inordinately rely on.
| A US-citizen has to pay taxes no matter where they reside,
| but the wealthier citizens of EU countries can easily evade
| taxes by domiciling themselves in various tax havens around
| the EU. Germany does a very poor job collecting taxes from
| the highest earners.
| kmlx wrote:
| > I find it quite disturbing that high taxation is seen as a
| negative aspect of Europe.
|
| after receiving the same services for no or minimal tax i
| also find it very disturbing that people still think high
| taxation is necessary.
| 0xFF0123 wrote:
| Where?
| mk89 wrote:
| In general, if you don't pay taxes, in the listed
| countries you still can get treatment. It was probably a
| provocation - I guess?
| mk89 wrote:
| Maybe nitpicking here, but healthcare is not financed with
| your taxes in Germany - it's financed by statutory health
| insurance (SHI) and private health insurance (PHI). The State
| "simply" sets the framework/legislation/etc. so that it
| doesn't get wild (like probably it is in the USA). [0]
|
| In Italy it's the state/regions that take your taxes and pay
| the health system.
|
| [0]: https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/fileadmin/Da
| teie...
| miken123 wrote:
| > A country like the Netherlands has its own issues (mainly
| housing) but doesn't have the myriad of pain points you can
| find in Germany like Schufa
|
| In the Netherlands we have BKR, which is less all-encompassing
| than SCHUFA, but also needed to be fined before giving proper
| right to access under the GDPR:
| https://edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2020/national-cred...
| javajosh wrote:
| _> low digitalization_
|
| Given that everyone uses IBAN, and it works great, I strongly
| disagree.
|
| _> private healthcare if you want decent treatments_
|
| Your mileage may vary, but I was very impressed with the speed
| and ease of acquiring healthcare under a public plan. The lack
| of paperwork for seeing a new doctor is astonishing. The lack
| of copays, SOBs, and all that is like a breath of fresh air,
| and is worth copying in the US. Heck I once saw a doctor for
| something and simply gave my card, and saw the doctor in the
| next hour, and she decided I needed an ultrasound... _and did
| the ultrasound in 5 minutes herself_. In the US, this would
| have been a multi-week ordeal with multiple rounds of paperwork
| and visits to different offices.
|
| My wife also had a C-section at a Berlin hospital and the care
| was competent and 100% covered by our public insurance. In the
| US couples requiring a C-section can expect $20k+ of debt.
| jamesmunns wrote:
| Low digitalization isn't just payment - it's also needing to
| fill in paper forms, or making in-person visits to government
| and business offices.
|
| I've been living in Germany for about a decade, and it is
| still behind in many of these items from when I left the US,
| and having a friend that recently moved from Germany to NL,
| he was blown away at how convenient and just not-hostile so
| many day to day interactions with governments and businesses
| were.
|
| Like - big picture, I'm very happy in Germany, but certain
| things are still very archaic and sometimes needlessly so.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| I agree, just look at the recent (well, decade-long?)
| attempt to digitalize the car registration process, which
| can only be called a total desaster.
| Bayart wrote:
| My impression coming from France, which I never thought of as
| particularly progressive on the technological front, is that
| Germany is full of odd, idiosyncratic archaisms.
| Unfrozen0688 wrote:
| low digitalization, high taxation
|
| Sweden is highly digitalized, we pay on our phones, pay taxes
| on our phones, do government stuff on phone or webbrowser. No
| stores do cash anymore (also a negative)
|
| High taxes is a positive if used right
| miroljub wrote:
| Sweden is a low tax land compared to Germany. In the past, it
| was known for high taxes, but one could argue that this
| progress came together with the tax reduction in the last
| decades.
| usr1106 wrote:
| German "public" healthcare is much more accessible and has much
| better coverage than its Finnish counterpart.
|
| Despite Finland reapeatedly making headlines (including on HN)
| about being a Nordic welfare state.
|
| Germans are typically complaining from a high level.
|
| Source: Members of the wider family living in both countries.
| Some over 80 and needing a lot of healthcare services.
|
| (I hear general practioners can be a problem in poorer areas in
| the East. My experiences are from a prosperous area in the
| West.)
| oarfish wrote:
| A finnish colleague once told me that the Finns just don't go
| to the doctor unless something falls off. Any accuracy to
| that?
| usr1106 wrote:
| Yes, especially for Finnish men in the countryside that's a
| sterotype with quite some truth behind it.
|
| Edit: And that results in a dangerous combination: First
| waiting too long and then getting the answser "no free
| appointments". And if you insist the next one is in 3 or 6
| months. Many Finns do not insist.
| graemep wrote:
| > Germans are typically complaining from a high level.
|
| Do Germans share the British tendency to think everything is
| better in the rest of the world?
|
| As an immigrant (as a child, admittedly) and someone who has
| lived and worked elsewhere and, more importantly, does not
| completely share this aspect of the culture, I find British
| pessimism and self-flagellation really, really annoying.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Germans unfortunately like to complain a lot. Many things
| are better elsewhere, is claimed. Except for many other
| countries nearby. And the weirdos from UK leaving EU. And
| the weirdos from US with Trump. And we have it so bad, so
| bad. Sometimes I hate my fellow Germans.
| moi2388 wrote:
| True, but in the Netherlands it's the government itself which
| sells all of your data, literally everything from your house,
| it's price, location, blueprints, satellite images, what you
| paid for it, previous owners, your car, and even your
| government ID number if you are registered as a company, just
| to many a couple.
|
| And yes, you obviously have to pay to get your own data.
| meroes wrote:
| 400EUR for medical, dental, and optical combined you mean. And
| less for students. And you conveniently leave out their 4 week
| minimum vacation time/year. (my sis and her BIL just moved from
| there, and help people move there).
|
| Digitalization is really behind yes, and homeownership is even
| more expensive than the US. But rent is almost half the US and
| groceries are cheaper. And instead of subsidizing full sized
| pickup trucks and EVs, you get Audis, VWs, etc for cheaper.
| discopicante wrote:
| Now compare median income of Germany vs US. Economic
| opportunity is fading away in Germany. Also, pretty much all
| cars - especially Audis, VWs, etc are (20-30%) more expensive
| in Germany vs US.
| mk89 wrote:
| > private healthcare if you want decent treatments > public
| healthcare inaccessible
|
| What do you mean? I am not sure what you mean by decent
| treatments.
|
| > Schufa
|
| There is some change happening there, especially now that the
| EU Justice Court ruled against credit scoring institutions
| (they break GDPR, etc.). Very slowly, as usual, but it might
| happen. (Also the current governement is planning changes.)
| dhoe wrote:
| I almost didn't get a mortgage in the Netherlands because if
| you're German, they request a Schufa report, and there was a
| minor issue on that. Had I come from e.g. Bangladesh instead of
| from Germany, I would not have had this problem.
|
| We found a workaround and ten years later the house is paid off,
| just for illustration of how predictive that report was. I'll
| cheer for whoever takes on and fights Schufa, always.
| bombcar wrote:
| The underlying issue is that bankers have no discretion (for
| various good and bad reasons). Everything is bureaucracy and
| checking the right boxes to let the computer decree your
| worthiness. No overrides, no explanations permitted - unless
| you can attack the problem from another angle.
| ffpip wrote:
| Is your credit score your data? Or are they just asking the
| report of all your past debts be provided for me?
| odiroot wrote:
| In the process of renting a flat in Germany, SCHUFA is not even
| the biggest travesty.
|
| The worst part is potential tenants handing over full dossiers
| about their background to the prospective landlords. Passport
| copies, payslips, account statements and more. And as a tenant,
| you have no way of knowing when does it all end up.
|
| At best it will be dumped into a paper recycling bin. But who
| knows if all these documents aren't sold further.
|
| You also have no choice, you comply or you lose any chance of
| getting a flat.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| It is incredible the amount of private information that gets
| exchanged in Germany to access certain things. You brought up
| landlords, but I've heard crazy stories about job applications
| or applications to services that "require" an incredible amount
| of private information (often even including pictures too!)
| handed-over for completely obscure reasons with no recourse if
| your application is denied or simply ignored.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| Are US "background checks" any better?
| Sebguer wrote:
| A US background check for most jobs is generally just a
| literal check on whether you've been charged with any
| crimes, and doesn't go much more detailed than that.
| ploxiln wrote:
| For renting apartments, it's just like this in NYC. But
| nothing like this in most of the country. I rented in
| Pittsburgh for a few years in college, and a suburb north
| of LA for a couple years after that, and the application
| documentation was much much less, pretty much just security
| deposit.
|
| The issue in places like NYC (and some German cities like
| Berlin I gather) is that the extreme tenant protection laws
| mean that landlords have to go to extreme lengths to
| protect themselves from tenants. In NYC you could have a
| tenant not paying, damaging the property, and pushing out
| neighboring tenants, for well over a year before you can
| force them out, if they're ornery enough. It could kill
| your business, and it probably did kill the business of
| most landlords who didn't switch to extreme draconian
| documentation requirements in applications: multiple tax
| returns, multiple statements from all bank accounts, proof
| of employment, records of previous residences, contact info
| for previous landlords ...
| Ringz wrote:
| > ob applications or applications to services that "require"
| an incredible amount of private information (often even
| including pictures too!)
|
| Those crazy stories are indeed crazy and simply not true.
| glfharris wrote:
| It's very similar in the UK. Most estate agents will use a
| third party these days, but the amount of information you have
| to hand over is ridiculous.
| yakito wrote:
| I remember a few years back, they themselves had proposed a
| system to use people's social media posts to create a "credit"
| system and rate individuals based on their postings. At the time,
| it was quite a mess. The public did not like the idea at all, and
| SCHUFA had to back down, but it's not the first time they've been
| involved in problems and controversies.
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2012/06/schufa-s-plan-to-use-so...
| amelius wrote:
| Can we make data collection and data brokerage opt-in with a
| written consent letter that has to be re-acknowledged every year?
|
| I bet literally nobody wants their data collected and traded.
| nforgerit wrote:
| German here. If you ask me, Germany has set up the perfect feudal
| state.
| rtz121 wrote:
| Except without any of the good parts of historic feudalism.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| People wouldn't be able to get this information without SCHUFA -
| at least not doing a fair bit of work. SCHUFA did work to build a
| system of gathering and providing this information in a
| consolidated way. I don't think people should have a right to
| demand this value be provided to them for free.
|
| If everybody now demands this information for free, why would
| this business continue to operate? And if they don't, how will
| landlords get information about who is financially reliable and
| who isn't?
|
| In the US is works because landlords typically will not accept
| self-obtained credit reports. They pay the credit agency
| directly. As a consumer I can get my information for free, easily
| - but my landlord will still want to pay the agency for their own
| copy.
| sokols wrote:
| They are required by law to provide the information once a
| year, for free. The complaint here is that the "free" report
| contains less information than the paid one. Information which
| could affect a decision about a loan or maybe a decision of
| some landlord about a prospective tenant.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| This wasn't clear to me in the article: "With the help of
| manipulative designs, people are prevented from obtaining a
| free copy of their data in accordance with Article 15 GDPR -
| even though they would actually be legally entitled to it."
|
| Maybe you're talking about the score, but the score isn't
| data - it's an algorithm. "For example, in the case of the
| complainant, the free information included only a 'basic
| score', while the paid information showed six different
| 'industry scores.'"
|
| And this is basically how it works in the US as well. When
| you get your free credit report, it will contain a score, but
| not the same score as is seen by a business requesting the
| report - because there are many different scores used for
| different purposes. The business pays for the score that
| matters to them which is different than what the consumer
| sees.
|
| None of this feels particularly nefarious to me.
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