Monday, March 22, 2010
Been thinking ...
Let me just state, up front, that all I am relating is some of my personal experiences from my military career. Any conclusions you draw from what I have to say are your own. Any inferences you make, or implications you see from what I say, are, once again, your own.
As a lot of you know, I was stationed in Germany from 2003-2006, after spending a year in Korea.
While there Amy and I became good friends with a family that run a very successful tax advisor business in norther Bavaria, in particular, the oldest daughter of the family, Isa. Isa holds, roughly, the American equivalent of an MBA, and is very fluent in English. Through her, her family, and a few other sources, we learned some very interesting things about Germany. ... But, I am getting ahead of myself.
In February of '06, Amy noticed that the color vision in her left eye was noticeably less than that of her right eye. We consulted some Army doctors all over Germany, and, as a result, she was sent to see German doctors at the eye clinic in Ehrlangen. We were told that this is one of the best eye clinics in all of Europe.
Now, everyone in this clinic is, primarily, a German speaker. They know some English, but it is, by no means, their primary language. The discussions we were going to have in this place were highly technical, and the grasp of the German language that Amy and I had just wasn't going to cut it. So, we asked our friend, Isa, to go with us to translate ... and drive, because she knew where it was.
So, we tool down the Autobahn in Isa's VW Golf ... and Isa knew how to make that thing ... it didn't "fly" like a Porsche, or an upper-end BMW or Mercedes, but it spent a lot of time in the fast lane.
We get off the Autobahn, enter this lovely, old German town, and drive through it to this very modern looking building. She stops, and we go in. It's gorgeous.
We leave the main lobby, and head into, by the German I can read, the eye clinic. There is a large waiting area, filled with people. We go up to the desk to check in, and Isa does all the talking. I look around at all the people waiting, and wonder if we will see a doctor, or a nurse that day. I hear Isa explain who we are, and that we are here under the US military program. She answers a few more questions, and ... we are sent right in. That's right! Sent in ahead of all of these people who are waiting, and, by appearances, have been waiting for some time.
We go and sit down outside of the initial screening area, and I ask Isa what just happened?
She explained that the people in the waiting area were the ones on the government health plan.
Which prompted me to ask about us, and all the other people I saw in the area we were in.
She explained that everyone in our area were on private medical insurance programs, and the German medical system treats the US military medical program as a private insurance program, because of the way it reimburses the caregiver fully.
I told her that I thought that Germany had a totally socialized system of medical care.
She, then, enlightened me that Germany, once, had a totally socialized system, but the service was so slow, and the tax burden so great ... that the resulting public outcry had caused the government to reinstitute private health insurance.
She was quick to state several things:
a) those that could afford it, were quick to acquire private health insurance, because the public plan sucked, in terms of timeliness, and quality of care;
b) the government did not pay enough to reimburse the medical facilities costs for any given procedure;
c) even though a person was paying for a private plan, and, therefore, no burden to the government, they still had to pay taxes as if they were receiving government health care.
By the time she had finished her explanation, we were in to see the doctor. We were in and out of there by noon ... and many of the faces I remembered in the lobby of the eye clinic were, still, there, when we left.
The end result was that Amy had optic neuritis. If your read all of the Wikipedia article, then you know that 20-30% of the people that contract optic neuritis, have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That was a concern of several of the doctors we saw. They used everything in their resources, to include, what was to them, our "private insurance", to diagnose Amy thoroughly ... and not leave her in that waiting room in Ehrlangen.
Amy was diagnosed with MS on June 22, 2006, by the chief neurologist of the Bamberg Klinkum. Our 21st anniversary.
Some other interesting things I learned about Germany:
Their median (average) income tax rate is 54%. (Meaning a person only gets to keep 46%, less than half, of what they earn)
The German federal government has imposed, at the time I left Germany, a 16% "Value Added Tax". Meaning a German pays a 16% sales tax to the federal govenment, above and beyond any local tax, on EVERYTHING they purchase.
Think about that for a moment.
As a German, the government takes over half of what you work hard to earn, BEFORE YOU EVEN SEE IT, and, then, takes even more in a sales tax on what you have left ....
Meaning, in those percentages, then, that for every ... let's say dollar, you earn, you, actually, have 38 cents of buying power!
Or to flip it around, the government gets 62 cents for every dollar you earn ... and this is after the Germans have "fixed" things to allow private insurance to be "allowed" again.
Go to Germany, or look their papers up on the web, the bulk of their government funds go to health care, and their equivalent of welfare, because they had, about, a 30% unemployment rate when I was there.
To be fair, joing the European Union, and adopting the "euro", really screwed Germany, economically. (This happened shortly before I was stationed there.)
By the agreement in which Germany joined the EU, anything sold had to be equivalent, meaning if a product sold cost a Deutsche Mark before, it, now, cost one Euro. However, the same agreement stipulated that to "buy" a single Euro, it cost 2 Deutsche Marks. So, effectively, the price of EVERYTHING doubled.
****
So, as I said before, draw your own conclusions about my personal story, and experiences.
I am happy to serve my nation, and follow the orders of my, duly-elected, Commander in Chief.
It's a happy "Obama-nation"! Don't you think?
As a lot of you know, I was stationed in Germany from 2003-2006, after spending a year in Korea.
While there Amy and I became good friends with a family that run a very successful tax advisor business in norther Bavaria, in particular, the oldest daughter of the family, Isa. Isa holds, roughly, the American equivalent of an MBA, and is very fluent in English. Through her, her family, and a few other sources, we learned some very interesting things about Germany. ... But, I am getting ahead of myself.
In February of '06, Amy noticed that the color vision in her left eye was noticeably less than that of her right eye. We consulted some Army doctors all over Germany, and, as a result, she was sent to see German doctors at the eye clinic in Ehrlangen. We were told that this is one of the best eye clinics in all of Europe.
Now, everyone in this clinic is, primarily, a German speaker. They know some English, but it is, by no means, their primary language. The discussions we were going to have in this place were highly technical, and the grasp of the German language that Amy and I had just wasn't going to cut it. So, we asked our friend, Isa, to go with us to translate ... and drive, because she knew where it was.
So, we tool down the Autobahn in Isa's VW Golf ... and Isa knew how to make that thing ... it didn't "fly" like a Porsche, or an upper-end BMW or Mercedes, but it spent a lot of time in the fast lane.
We get off the Autobahn, enter this lovely, old German town, and drive through it to this very modern looking building. She stops, and we go in. It's gorgeous.
We leave the main lobby, and head into, by the German I can read, the eye clinic. There is a large waiting area, filled with people. We go up to the desk to check in, and Isa does all the talking. I look around at all the people waiting, and wonder if we will see a doctor, or a nurse that day. I hear Isa explain who we are, and that we are here under the US military program. She answers a few more questions, and ... we are sent right in. That's right! Sent in ahead of all of these people who are waiting, and, by appearances, have been waiting for some time.
We go and sit down outside of the initial screening area, and I ask Isa what just happened?
She explained that the people in the waiting area were the ones on the government health plan.
Which prompted me to ask about us, and all the other people I saw in the area we were in.
She explained that everyone in our area were on private medical insurance programs, and the German medical system treats the US military medical program as a private insurance program, because of the way it reimburses the caregiver fully.
I told her that I thought that Germany had a totally socialized system of medical care.
She, then, enlightened me that Germany, once, had a totally socialized system, but the service was so slow, and the tax burden so great ... that the resulting public outcry had caused the government to reinstitute private health insurance.
She was quick to state several things:
a) those that could afford it, were quick to acquire private health insurance, because the public plan sucked, in terms of timeliness, and quality of care;
b) the government did not pay enough to reimburse the medical facilities costs for any given procedure;
c) even though a person was paying for a private plan, and, therefore, no burden to the government, they still had to pay taxes as if they were receiving government health care.
By the time she had finished her explanation, we were in to see the doctor. We were in and out of there by noon ... and many of the faces I remembered in the lobby of the eye clinic were, still, there, when we left.
The end result was that Amy had optic neuritis. If your read all of the Wikipedia article, then you know that 20-30% of the people that contract optic neuritis, have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That was a concern of several of the doctors we saw. They used everything in their resources, to include, what was to them, our "private insurance", to diagnose Amy thoroughly ... and not leave her in that waiting room in Ehrlangen.
Amy was diagnosed with MS on June 22, 2006, by the chief neurologist of the Bamberg Klinkum. Our 21st anniversary.
Some other interesting things I learned about Germany:
Their median (average) income tax rate is 54%. (Meaning a person only gets to keep 46%, less than half, of what they earn)
The German federal government has imposed, at the time I left Germany, a 16% "Value Added Tax". Meaning a German pays a 16% sales tax to the federal govenment, above and beyond any local tax, on EVERYTHING they purchase.
Think about that for a moment.
As a German, the government takes over half of what you work hard to earn, BEFORE YOU EVEN SEE IT, and, then, takes even more in a sales tax on what you have left ....
Meaning, in those percentages, then, that for every ... let's say dollar, you earn, you, actually, have 38 cents of buying power!
Or to flip it around, the government gets 62 cents for every dollar you earn ... and this is after the Germans have "fixed" things to allow private insurance to be "allowed" again.
Go to Germany, or look their papers up on the web, the bulk of their government funds go to health care, and their equivalent of welfare, because they had, about, a 30% unemployment rate when I was there.
To be fair, joing the European Union, and adopting the "euro", really screwed Germany, economically. (This happened shortly before I was stationed there.)
By the agreement in which Germany joined the EU, anything sold had to be equivalent, meaning if a product sold cost a Deutsche Mark before, it, now, cost one Euro. However, the same agreement stipulated that to "buy" a single Euro, it cost 2 Deutsche Marks. So, effectively, the price of EVERYTHING doubled.
****
So, as I said before, draw your own conclusions about my personal story, and experiences.
I am happy to serve my nation, and follow the orders of my, duly-elected, Commander in Chief.
It's a happy "Obama-nation"! Don't you think?
Labels: Bavaria, Ehrlangen, Germany, MBA, tax
