What Germany’s Coal Miners Can Teach America About Medical Debt

(By Noam N. Levey for Kaiser Health News)

PÜTTLINGEN, Germany — Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany’s Saarland.

The region’s last-operating coal shaft, just a few miles away, closed a decade ago, ending centuries of mining in the Saarland, a mostly rural state tucked between the Rhine River and the French border. But the mines left a difficult legacy, as they have in coal regions in the United States, including West Virginia. Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation.

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