The German Federal Government provides the regulatory framework for health care, but the "Länder" are responsible for providing health care. They are major suppliers of running capital investment costs in hospitals, they help fund both medical education and hospital construction, and they are one of the major owners of the hospitals (along with local governments and charities).
The providers of health care services and purchasers (mainly the sickness funds) are strictly seperated. The purchasers are decentralised, self-administered nonprofit sickness funds, which are financed by equal contributions from employers and employees. The employee's contribution is a fixed percentage of gross income (in 1997 averaged 13.3% and ranged from 9.0% to 15.3%) and independent of the health risk presented by the employee and of the employee's dependants.
(Source:
WHO country profiles 1999)
