Or young undocumented. As we indicated in our post "Pro Bono", one of the drawbacks of a society that is fairly organized and has relatively few really disenfranchised people can be that it lacks support for those who fall outside of accepted categories. That becomes a problem if the numbers of the down and out rise quickly.
Or in other words: there is little to no infrastructure for the truly disenfranchised.
Imagine a U.S. without free clinics.
That's basically what you have in Germany.
We found two places in big cities that do offer something akin to the US free clinics in Stuttgart and Munich.
Asylum seekers and others legally here but unemployed have coverage through the local welfare office. They can ask for an authorization slip and then go see a doctor.
But for small, routine problems, many officials tend to not issue them or to delay, eventually making conditions worse -- somewhat the opposite of accepted best practice.
Undocumented people can and do get emergency care but this means they can end up in the system, and once in the system, there is a risk of deportation. On the one hand, doctor patient confidentiality rules apply in Germany, so, theoretically, no one needs to be afraid to see a doctor.
But German doctors like to get paid for what they do.
We do not have good numbers for the extent of the problem (the number of uninsured illegals is often given as somewhere around 600 000), nor do we know how many doctors will simply treat people and not try to get paid by the local welfare office.
We have not heard of Harper Lee style 'potatoes for potions' bartering here.
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