What U.S. Can Learn from Germany’s Health System: Multi-Payer, Sickness Funds, and Social Solidarity

How does Germany’s health system operate? What lessons can the U.S. health system learn from it? Should refugees have European health care? Would Europe be able to support its increasingly older population?… In this conversation, Prof. Reinhard Busse explains Germany’s complex yet well-functioning health system. He highlights how Americans can learn from a multi-payer system like Germany’s and what we could do to tackle the rising healthcare cost. His perspective from outside the U.S. might provide us some fresh insights on the various kinds of health systems in our world today and how the U.S. could learn from them. Prof. Busse is the Director of the Department of Health Care Management at Technische Universität Berlin. He is Co-Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and editor-in-chief of the international peer-reviewed journal “Health Policy.” His research focuses on Health systems, Health Policy, Health Services, Health Economics, Epidemiology and Public Health.