zlacker

> you have insurance companies you choose between, but you're required to have some kind of insurance, and there are a set of "public" insurances that must meet a certain standard at a certain price

That's basically Obamacare. Except in the US most people still get health insurance through their employers.

>>klipt+(OP)
The conservative heritage foundation got the idea from Switzerland. Romney then adopted it from the heritage foundation Massachusetts and Obama decided it was the path with the most Republican (and so bi-partisan) support so pushed it for the rest of the country.

>>seanmc+C
Obama worked really hard to get Republican buy-in. He held that big meeting with Congress that was meant to be a sort of a summit (where they stonewalled him), and even let Pelosi kill the public option. Nothing doing; the problem wasn't that it was good or bad policy, it was that it was Obama's policy (after it was Romney's, after it was the Heritage Foundation's).

>>klipt+(OP)
Both the public and private insurances are far more regulated in Germany than Obamacare.

If you're on a public insurance in Germany, you rarely pay any substantial copay, and there's no concept of a deductible. Not only that, but the price of the policy is a percentage of your income (capped at some absolute upper limit), so if you make little, you pay little.

Prices paid by public insurers to healthcare providers are fixed, and even the private insurers aren't allowed to pay providers more than a certain multiple of the public rate.

In other words, in Germany, the government has a much stronger hand in setting prices for both patients and insurers than under the Obamacare system.