Health
In 2005, how did Germany spend of its GDP on health care?
Germany
Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating back to Bismarck's social legislation in 1883. He stressed the importance of three key principles; solidarity, the government is responsible to ensure access by those who are in need, subsidiarity, policies are implemented with smallest no political and administrative influence, and corporatism, the government representative bodies in health care professions deems feasible procedures. Since then there have been many reforms and provisions to ensure a balanced health care system. Currently the population is covered by a fairly comprehensive health insurance plan provided by statute. Certain groups of people (lifetime officials, self-employed persons, employees with high income) can opt out of the plan and switch to a private insurance contract. Previously, these groups could also choose to do without insurance, but this option was dropped in 2009. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded . In 2005, Germany spent 11% of its GDP on health care. Germany ranked 20th in the world in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births)., the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 41%, followed by malignant tumours, at 26%., about 82,000 Germans had been infected with HIV/AIDS and 26,000 had died from the disease (cumulatively, since 1982). This article may incorporate text from this source, which is in the public domain.</ref>According to a 2005 survey, 27% of German adults are smokers.