If something has to be believed in for it to work properly, it doesn't work properly.

Germany's system of mandatory universal healthcare is the oldest in Europe; in fact, we've been commies since the 1880s ...only some 3 decades after Marx and Engels wrote their Communist Manifesto.

The German system is two-tiered: Every person (some exceptions if you're still insured via your parents, which happens automatically) needs to be in one of the several hundred (!) different public insurances. Unemployed people pay a fixed premium (same for all insurers), and employed people pay a certain percentage of their income (14,9 % at the moment, payed equally by workers and their employers), plus a fixed cost, to be determined by the insurers. These "add-on fees" (currently capped at 1 % of income), and the specific set of additional services and benefits are what differentiates the individual insurers.

About 10 % of Germans are privately insured, which costs more and pays for more expensive, but unnecessary, stuff (single-bed hospital rooms, gold fillings, etc).

But, in Germany as in the rest of the world, the healthcare costs are rising. We're still a far cry away from an "American situation", but costs of about 10 % of GDP still puts us in 4th place of the OECD countries. Indeed, is is already projected that premium will go up to 15,5 %, and that the add-on fees will be uncapped.


So we need to economise. But where?

Efforts to regulate the prices of drugs more closely are already underway, and now the opposition party of the Social Democrats (SPD) have had an epiphany: "Why, exactly, is it, that more than half of the public insurers pay for homeopathic "remedies"?"

"Gute Idee!", think the currently ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) - "we'll see how much we can save by disallowing it!"

"But, it's like, empowering people, and stuff, and, like, traditional medicine is wasteful as well!!!11eleven!! Also, homeopathy is somehow more natural, and therefore better than the orthodox, industrial medicine!" blurb the Green Party, whom I had actually relied on not being unscientific buffoons. As Calvin said, reality continues to ruin my life.

An additional effect of this is mentioned by Karl Lauterbach, the SPD's health care expert:

We should plainly forbid the insurers to pay for homeopathic treatments. Many patients believe that insurers will only pay for treatments that are verifiably efficient. This means that the insurers are unwittingly lending credence to homeopathy. - Source (German)

Ah, well...let's see how this works out. I'd be making some popcorn, but it's just too hot.