Editing Willy Brandt (section)

==== Health care ====
In the field of health care, various measures were introduced to improve the quality and availability of health care provision. Free hospital care was introduced for 9 million recipients of social relief,<ref name="Dönhoff" /> while a contributory medical service for 23 million panel patients was introduced.<ref name="Dönhoff" /> Pensioners were exempted from paying a 2% health insurance contribution,<ref name="Prittie" /> while improvements in health insurance provision were carried out,<ref name="Radice" /> as characterised by an expanded sickness insurance scheme, with the inclusion of preventative treatment.<ref name="Flora" /> The income limit for compulsory sickness insurance was indexed to changes in the wage level (1970),<ref name="Flora" /> and the right to medical cancer screening for 23.5 million people was introduced.<ref name="spiegel.de">{{cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-42953833.html |title=DER SPIEGEL 16/1972 – Anders als zu Kaisers und zu Katzers Zeiten |work=Der Spiegel |date=9 April 1972 |access-date=14 November 2012}}</ref> In January 1971, the reduction of sickness allowance in case of hospitalisation was discontinued.<ref name="aei.pitt_a">{{cite web|url=http://aei.pitt.edu/9805/1/9805.pdf|title=Report on the Development of the Social Situation in the Community in 1971|website=Aei.pitt.edu|access-date=17 April 2017}}</ref> That same year, compulsory health insurance was extended to the self-employed.<ref>{{harvp|Tomka|2004|p=64}}</ref> In 1970, the government included nonmedical psychotherapists and psychoanalysts in the national health insurance program.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VhS8y2tRf6YC&pg=PA369|title=Psychotherapy in the Third Reich: The GÃ¶ring Institute|first=Geoffrey|last=Cocks|date=1 January 1997|publisher=Transaction Publishers|via=Google Books|isbn=9781412832366}}</ref>

Pupils, students and children in kindergartens were incorporated into the accident insurance scheme,<ref name="Flora"/> which benefited 11 million children.<ref name="Dönhoff"/> Free medical checkups were introduced that same year,<ref name="hdg.de">{{cite web|url=http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/DasGeteilteDeutschland/KontinuitaetUndWandel/SozialLiberaleKoalition/innereReformen.html |title=Innere Reformen |publisher=Hdg.de |access-date=14 November 2012}}</ref> while the Farmers' Sickness Insurance Law (1972) introduced compulsory sickness insurance for independent farmers, family workers in agriculture, and pensioners under the farmers' pension scheme, medical benefits for all covered groups, and cash benefits for family workers under compulsory coverage for pension insurance.<ref name="Flora"/> Participation in employer's health insurance was extended to four million employees.<ref name="spiegel.de"/> A Development Law of December 1970 made it possible for all employees to voluntarily become members of the statutory sickness insurance. The level of income for compulsory sickness insurance was indexed to 75% of the respective assessment level for pension insurance, while voluntarily insured employees were granted a claim to an allowance towards their sickness insurance from their employer. This law also introduced a new type of sickness insurance benefit, namely facilities for the early diagnosis of disease. Apart from the discretionary service of disease prevention which had existed since 1923, insured persons now had a right in certain circumstances to medical examinations aimed at the early diagnosis of disease. According to one study, this marked a change in the concept of sickness insurance: it now aimed at securing good health.<ref name="TheEvolution" />

The Hospital Financing Law (1972) secured the supply of hospitals and reduced the cost of hospital care, "defined the financing of hospital investment as a public responsibility, single states to issue plans for hospital development, and the federal government to bear the cost of hospital investment covered in the plans, rates for hospital care thus based on running costs alone, hospitals to ensure that public subsidies together with insurance fund payments for patients cover total costs".<ref name="Flora" /> The Benefit Improvement Law (1973) made entitlement to hospital care legally binding (entitlements already enjoyed in practice), abolished time limits for hospital care, introduced entitlement to household assistance under specific conditions, and also introduced entitlement to leave of absence from work and cash benefits in the event of a child's illness.<ref name="Flora"/> In 1971, to encourage the growth of registered family holiday centres, the Federal Government granted subsidies for the building and appointing of 28 of these centres at a total cost of 8 million DM.<ref name="aei.pitt_a" /> Free preliminary investigations were introduced for 2.5 million children up until the age of 4 for the early detection and correction of developmental disorders, and health research was expanded. Federal grants were increased, especially for the Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, while a Federal Institute for Sport Science was set up, together with the Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology in Berlin. In addition, funding for new rehabilitation facilities was increased.<ref name="archive.org"/>