[uniqueuid]

I assume you mean there might be a self-selection issue with people who are voluntarily ("privately") insured, as compared to those who have the normal state-mandated ("gesetzlich") insurance?

This data is from AOK which is one of the state-mandated insurers. It insures around 2M people, and my gut feeling is that they are not terribly unrepresentative of the workforce as a whole.

But of course the point is, everyone with a tiny bit of true data could tell much more precise stories, and the journalists (as usual) didn't care or didn't think it would fly with readers.

[TomK32]

AOK insured 27 million in 2021, couldn't find a more recent number.

[uniqueuid]

Whoops, misread the digit! Thanks for catching.

But the numbers are still the same (it's about rates not counts), just that we can expect the 40% figure to be more accurate than with 2M.