I checked that 18-day-per-year sickness absence figure after seeing it quoted on another thread. It was actually 10.6: www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Qualitaet-Arbeit/Dimension-2/krankenstand.html (link in German. This is the German Federal Statistical Office date)
I agree completely with dreamingbohemian about UK healthcare - even in a region of Germany, as I am, where doctors are relatively thin on the ground and I recently spent a couple of months without a GP (but still with more or less direct access to any specialists I might have needed), I look at some of the struggles people in the UK have to get adequate care on the NHS and shudder. I've been glad many times to have had my children here and not there.
A lot of our income does go on statutory health and social care insurance, statutory pensions insurance (in dh's case - I've had a hiatus in contributions since going self-employed but am starting up again on a voluntary basis), and tax, but I've never begrudged it and at times like this I feel it's worth it.