(Darmstadt, Germany) A 37-year-old German woman with massive breasts wanted the government to pay for breast reduction. A regional court ruled against her.
Having extremely large breasts is not an illness and an operation to reduce their size is therefore not covered by German state health insurance, a court said Wednesday.
However, it was ruled by a German federal court in 2004 that huge breasts causing psychological problems would typically be covered. Therefore, if one simply asks for breast reduction, the cost would not be paid for by state health insurance, but if one says that huge breasts are causing psychological problems, then the (far higher) cost would be covered by insurance.
Evidently, people desiring normally unreimbursed medical procedures would be smart to go to a psychologist first and complain about severe depression or night sweats or something. Sporting a psychological problem, state health insurers would be forced to pay the cost of the underlying medical condition.
Helluva way to run a health care system.
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