Going from private to public health insurance

I need some advice & clarification of a few points around health insurance. Presently I'm single, don't know if I'll be here another year or forever. Planning on having kids on day though, not in near future.

After 4 years in German & private health insurance, I've changed jobs and now a freelancer with a lower income. Being a freelancer, I can stay with private insurance but as soon as I sign a contract, it will be below the mandatory private limit & I will be forced to go public. I really don't want to do this, but 'saving' my private health insurance as a freelancer means I'm also losing out on jobs & money. Is it really worth it?

I've seen many advantages of having private insurance & wonder how the public system will compare. I have also heard that private might be more cheaper for me (presently paying 300 euros/ month). When public is dependant on your monthly salary (around 12% if I understand correctly), how does that work with freelancers since your monthly 'salary' is alway changing?

Thanks for your help and any advice you can give me!

P.S. I have read most of the other health insurance threads, but most of them talk about going from public to private and not the other way around.

I was under the impression that once you were private it wasn't possible to go public, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm a freelancer and am public and I just pay a flat rate which was agreed with the Krankenkasse beforehand (and its a hell of a lot more than €300 per month!)

Me thinks if you leave Public and go private then you cant go back. But if you always had private and want to enter into public health its ok

When your salary changes and falls under 4,000 euros/ month, you automatically have to switch from private to public. However, with freelancer status you can keep the private, if I wish. Hence my choice...

Maybe you should talk to an Insurance advisor. Theres a few like Kretzschmar listed in the advertising guide.

cheers
jml

ps: be sure to check what a consultation costs before you make an appointment.

In theory that's true, but technically it is in fact quite easy to get back into the public system if you want to, like e.g. all you'd have to do is register as unemployed and you're automatically public. Then, when you pick up your job again, you can of course stay in the public system if you want to.


No, not true, as stated above you only automatically switch if you're officially unemployed. Otherwise, once you're in the private system nobody can force you into the public one.

I was under the impression that if you are a freelancer you can stay with private health insurance (even non german private health insurance, which would probably only cost you 100 euros a month) regardless - even if you sign a 3/6/whatever month contract.

Hello Strawberrystar.To clarify a few points: all freelancers/self-employed can choose whether to be "public" or "private".If you become an employee, as someone else rightly pointed out on this forum, you automatically become a "public patient" if earning under c.3900 euros a month. Your employer takes care of that.If you stay private for whatever reason or not in your life, the current ruling is that there is no turning back after the age of 55--then you would have to stay private. If you´re planning on several kids, it´s probably cheaper to be "public" unless your future spouse has a job as an employee and is "publicly insured" because otherwise you would have to pay for him/her and the kids.As somebody else pointed out, if you´re alone and self-employed a UK private health insurance for a self-employed expat is the cheapest.

My employment ends in 2 months.
I have the private health insurance, but once I start collecting unemployment benefits, then the insurance will be to expensive for me.
Has anybody had any issues like this?
Can I just give a three months notice to my private health insurance company and say that I want to have the public insurance now?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Topics merged by admin

So you opted out of the public health kasse for your own personal financial benefit, leaving the employed in the public kasse with more to shoulder.
And now it is no longer profitable you want to be in the public kasse, leaving the employed in the public kasse with more to shoulder?

Phone up a public health insurance company and presumably they'll tell you what's possible. Then get used to me and other privately insured people pushing in front of you in the queue to see the doc.

Get in touch with the Arbeitsamt ... under certain circumstances they´ll pay for your private health insurance (they usually pay for public health insurance) during your unemployment

^^^

But only if you have worked in Germany for a certain amount of time. They didn't pay for my health insurance until I gave them an E301 form... before that, I had to pay for health insurance by myself. Right bummer.

The public health insurance will almost certainly say no (for the reasons monkstown refers to - constraints to stop this sort of cherry picking).

Your contract will of course tell you the notice arrangements. The norm is a minimum of two or three years and you have the option to quit when the contract comes up for renewal after that.

nevermind

As I understand it, if you are unemployed, they will either help you pay your private health insurance, and after a while you will indeed be let back into the public system.

The Arbeitsamt will pay a contribution to your private health insurance up to the maximum amount that you would need to pay for the GKK (can't remember off hand whether they only pay the equivalent of your contributions or also the employer's contribution, as well).

The amount maxes out at somewhere between 300€ and 400€, which means if you're an old sod like me, it doesn't completely cover your private insurance costs.


... as long as you're not over 55 and have been GKK insured for less than 30 out of the previous 60 months.

no, not really. It´s only that my paycheck will not be as juicy as it is now and I'm not sure that I will be allowed to be in the private insurance any longer.
And BTW, private health insurance policy takers pay for part of the public health insurance cost. You can read about it in TT.


Thanks, I will do that.


Ah ok, if they will pay for it even during the time I am unemployed, then I guess that would be OK. Thanks for the hint I will investigate this even further

The company i was working for recently closed operations and i was made redundant.
I registered with the arbietsamt as jobless and started getting arbietlosengeld ( loss of earnings compensation). As i have been privately insured for the last 6 years the arbietamt offered to pay the private insurance as well but they required a letter from my insurance company that i have been private for atleast 5 years. Once i got the letter which was not a problem they then sent me to AOK to give an OK and on talking to someone at the desk i decided to go public as now i had the freedom to choose between public and private. As my wife doesn't work full-time and i have 3 kids it seemed like a better option then staying private.
Now i am working as a freelancer and expected to pay my own insurance etc. If you earn more than 3900 then there is a fixed amount that you have to pay as freelancer (565 euros per month in my case for the entire family) for public insurance. Having spoken to my insurance agent for a quote for private cover there is nothing less than 650 with a decent company.
As a couple planning kids it made good sense in the beginning to have private insurance, now that our family is complete it makes sense to be economical to stay with public cover as the insurance doesn't get expensive as your family grows.

Hope this helps )

Thanks!
In the requirements of what I have to bring to the Arbeitsamt it says that I have to bring proof of public health insurance.
I was not working for as long as you, so it is doubtful that the arbeitsamt will pay for my private insurance.
However, I will make the call tomorrow to ask what the deal is.
The other day I called my private health insurance, but nobody speaks English. I will give it a try again tomorrow as well.

Just talked to the Arbeitsamt and it was what elemets said in his post.
You have to have been in the private system for at least 5 years in order for them to pay for your private health insurance once you are unemployed.
So basically I have to have the public health insurance now.
Anybody got a tip on a public health insurance company?

Seems an easy way back into public then - just go unemployed for a bit. The whole health insurance system here is screwed up really.

You write:

"You have to have been in the private system for at least 5 years in order for them to pay for your private health insurance once you are unemployed.
So basically I have to have the public health insurance now. "

How does the second part follow from the first, exactly?

The first bit indicates that all that's happened is that the Arbeitsamt has told you that it won't play your private healthcare. Nothing more.

Did the Arbeitsamt specifically say that a public health insurer "has to" to insure you - has some sort of legal obligation?

I'm sure many people would be very interested if that is the case .

Yes, the public insurers are compelled to accept people. You just choose your company, fill the forms in and that's that. The Arbeitsamt normally insist that you get insurance before they'll give you any money.

Ta .

According to german law, everybody has to be ensured, If you don't qualify for the private health insurance, then by default you have to get the public health insurance.

Some ppl seem to take offence at me having to go private->public, as if they own the system. Incredible.

I have no time to read this thread, but having been in both systems I can recommend the TK (Technische Krankenkasse). They are a public health insurance offering good service. Good luck and don't let yourself be demotivated by stupid comments, should this be the case.

Thanks!

I don't "own" the public health care system, I'm just one of the people that finances it.

I'm not having a go at the fact that you are facing a drop in income.

The reason you are "having" to go from the private sector to the public sector now is becasue you thought purely of your own financial interests before, leaving people like me to shoulder more of the financial burden. And now your income is dropping you are expecting people like me to shoulder even more of a financial burden as you try and run back into the public sector.
Suddenly, solidarity and shared risk seems likes a nice idea - as long as it is not you footing the bill of course.

It's a good idea if the government enforces it. But I'll be damned if I'm going to pay another 150 to 200 euros a month to support their screwed up system. If they made everyone pay for public insurance and made private an option (a system that is logical and one I support), then the payments for everyone on the public system will come down.

The whole thing is in shambles. It costs far, far too much. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would much prefer the UK system here. It costs virtually nothing, and provides a pretty low level of coverage. But if you get sick, they will fix you up. If you want luxury and all the benefits, feel free to pay for them. Honestly, after experiencing a number of different types of health insurance, I really think the British have it sorted.

While I am not so sure that I can fully underwrite what Hutcho wrote above about the NHS, he is more than right about the German system being a total mess. And I am very sure that the current system will not survive in the present form for more then, say, another decade or so (reforms take a looooooooong time in Germany as a result of the policital system, I am affraid ).
There should indeed be an obligatory membership, either by taxation or by direct fees, to the public health system for everyone,young and old, rich and poor, in order to make it more stable and reliable. Of course that would mean that some of the current coverage from the public health insurance will have to be downgraded some more in order to make it financially feasible..

While I think everyone can understand the individual needs of xman99 to change now from private to public health insurance as an unemployed, it does create a "free-rider" problem for the public health insurance which Monkstown points out correctly...

well, if we all live long enough, we might actually see and experience the major changes still in our lifetime

Cheerio