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The German Health Care System: Overview and Historical Development

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Redefining German Health Care

Abstract

The German health care system is one of the most comprehensive and extensively developed systems in the world. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the system as it exists today and trace its historic development, which can be divided into a period of rapid expansion after World War II, followed by one increasingly centering on cost containment starting in the mid 1970s, and continuing up to the present. As we will see, many of Germany’s current problems are rooted in past choices.

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Porter, M.E., Guth, C. (2012). The German Health Care System: Overview and Historical Development. In: Redefining German Health Care. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10826-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10826-6_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-10825-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-10826-6

  • eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)

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