There are three different categories of sickness funds: primary funds, substitute funds and “special” funds. Some workers are required to be members of the primary funds, e.g. if they earn less than the than the income ceiling (2006: EUR 3,937.50 per month / EUR 47,250.00 per year). Those earning more than that ceiling may be members on a voluntary basis, or they may have a choice of funds. Some of them automatically become members of a particular fund for example because of their occupation (company-based funds) or place of residence (local sickness funds). Some occupations have their own “special” funds, e.g. farmers or sailors. Substitute funds are divided into two kinds: they provide health insurance to both white collar workers and blue collar workers earning more than the income ceiling. Membership is voluntary. Both, employers and employees pay half of a member’s premiums, which in 2006 averaged between 13 and 14 percent of a worker’s gross earnings up to the contribution assessment ceiling (2006: EUR 3,562.50 monthly / EUR 42,750.00 p.a.). Premiums are fixed according to earnings rather than risk and are unaffected by the respective member’s marital status, family size, or health. Premiums are the same for all members within a particular fund with the same earnings.

About eleven percent of Germany’s residents pay for private health insurance provided by some 40 for-profit insurance carriers. Many of those choosing private insurance are civil servants who want to secure percentage of their medical bills not covered by the government. Some sickness-fund members buy additional private insurance to cover such extras as a private room or a choice of physicians while in a hospital. Otherwise, the medical care provided to the publicly and privately insured is identical. In both cases the same medical facilities are used. Self-employed persons earning above the income ceiling must have private insurance. Members of a sickness fund who leave it for a private insurance carrier are not allowed to return to public insurance. As opposed to the statutory heath insurance, contributions to the private insurance depend on the member’s age, gender, occupation and health status, that is, the individual risk. Although private insurance companies pay health care providers about twice the amount paid by the primary sickness funds, private insurance is often cheaper than statutory health insurance, especially for younger policyholders without dependents. As is the case for members of sickness funds, employees who have private insurance have half their premiums paid by their employers.

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Large scale enterprises are not the only ones who have discovered the benefits of outsourcing their business processes. In fact, because of the leaps and bounds made by the Internet, even small and medium scale enterprises have joined the outsourcing bandwagon. As a result, they are raking in millions of dollars in terms of productivity outputs and cost savings. More often that not, these companies found in developed countries outsource their business processes to developing countries, where labor costs are way lower and where there is an abundance of people with good English skills. These countries include the Philippines, which is slowly taking a bigger share of the global outsourcing market. The global outsourcing market is divided into the Information Technology (IT) outsourcing and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). The former kind of outsourcing was more popular in the first boom of the dotcoms in early 2000. In this model of outsourcing, multinationals have relied on the skills of IT professionals from developing countries such as the Philippines. The IT infrastructures of the companies were managed no longer by in-house IT personnel but by people whose offices are located abroad. The development of IT applications for the use of companies was among the services being used for this purpose. In addition to this, Technical support, Data center, and the management of IT infrastructure were likewise outsourced.

During the early years of business process outsourcing, only the non-core processes were outsourced. This included call centers, accounting processes, payroll management, and even the collection of receivables and payables. Upon knowing of the limitless possibilities of outsourcing, the Philippines started out in the year 2000 with only a handful of call centers and less than 5,000 employees. The global outsourcing market is not yet saturated. Actually, the industry still has a lot of room for growth and improvement. The growth rate for the market is expected to be at 43% in 2008 because of the increasing awareness among companies in the United States and Europe of the benefits that outsourcing brings. The Philippines is expected to play a bigger role in this market as the worlds outsourcing market becomes even bigger.

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Often, larger companies are able to offer private health insurance plans as part of the employment package where they pay all or a large amount of the premium, however the rising cost of health insurance is also affecting employers with many finding it difficult to maintain this company benefit. For many workers , the health insurance benefits a company offers is what attracts them to the job and not the pay packet. Those are the lucky workers as not every employer can afford to offer company provided health care so the only alternative is to try and locate inexpensive health insurance elsewhere.

You would be wise though to check the health insurance policy terms and conditions to make sure you fully understand what is covered and especially, what is not. For example, a health insurance company may define an emergency as anything that is life threatening condition that cannot be reasonably treated by a primary care physician. It may sound like a great deal to check on but your health insurance and the provider you decide to use are very important matters which should be looked at carefully. There is little disagreement that the growing number of people without health insurance is going to cause problems in the future. Worth considering is the statistic that shows that the fatality rate a person who does not have health insurance is twenty five percent higher than that of a person who has a health care plan.

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