Defining benefit catalogues and entitlements to health care in Germany: Decision makers, decision criteria and taxonomy of catalogues

This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political down-turn of this proposal were the (mis)perceived costs of a state guarantee, legal objections against a compulsory insurance, distributional conflicts between the federal government and the German states ("Länder") on the implied administrative costs and the well-known "samariter dilemma" of ad-hoc disaster relief. The focus on pure market solutions proved to be an ineffective strategy for policy advice in this field.