Berlin or Münster for WEBMU 2012

OK Folks, the discussions for the 2012 edition of WEBMU has started in earnest. The candidate cities have been nominated, and there are Berlin and Münster.


So if you are an expat and want to be part of the fun. Jump onto the expat bloggers in Germany website, sign up and get involve in the discussions. The voting for choosing the city finishes at 1st April 2012, 8pm. Time is running out if you want to put your vote in.


Personally, I would voted to visit Berlin. It is one of the cities in Germany I would like to visit. Although Münster is a much nicer town, German wise, Berlin has more recent history than Münster. 


It is also the biggest city in Germany. Large city in Germany is quite rare. Most of them do not get much larger than 1million people.

German hospital

In the last few days, I had some personal reasons to get intimate with a German hospital. I won't go into the details, but I have some respect the German health system.

Coming from Australia, the health system there can be best described as broken. Not slightly dented, or even worn out. It is simply broken.

I believe that health care for the people should be one of those things that needs to be free and be accessible for everyone. Australia is a developed country, and can provide plenty of advance health care, but unless you are able to afford private health insurance, that level care is usually not quite good enough. It usually takes too long to get something happening.

In Germany, My family and I have only the statutory health insurance. This is equivalent to Medicare in Australia. Even at this level of care, our entitlements are quite high. The care that they give to children is tremendous. All their prescribed medication are available without any further expenses, their visit to the doctors are also without any further expenses. The adult consultation is only charged at 10€ per quarter, but the medication incurs some expenses.

The hospital have a social worker that helps you with your home care, if required. This home care is part of your entitlement from the health insurance. Not only is home care available, assistance with the children are also possible. We are currently in the middle these discussions with our health insurance. I shall do another post when the details have finalised.

The German system is funded by the tax payers, very similar to the Medicare system. A percentage is calculated on your salary. I think that the Medicare system calculates the payment on the taxable income. The German system, calculates the gross income and the payable amount is capped.