About 87 percent of the  residents of Germany have statutory health insurance, i.e. GKV. As of May 2005,  the GKV relied on 321 non-profit sickness funds to collect premiums from their  members and pay health care providers according to negotiated agreements. Those  who are not insured this way, mainly civil servants and the self-employed,  receive health care through private for-profit insurance.
An estimate of 0,3 percent of  the German population (around 250,000 people) has no health insurance at all.  Some of them are so rich that they do not need it  but most of them are poor and receive health  care through social assistance. (more…)