No health insurance: Aid groups see hundreds of thousands affected

Tens of thousands of people in Germany live without health insurance coverage. According to official statistics, this affects about 72,000 people, tagesschau.de reported on Oct. 17, 2026. However, aid organizations such as Doctors of the World assume a much higher number of unreported cases, speaking of hundreds of thousands affected, with the trend rising. According to the report, several patients were already waiting at a Malteser practice for people without health insurance in Stuttgart.

The official figure comes from the Federal Statistical Office’s microcensus, which asks this question only every four years; the latest data refer to 2023. At that time, according to Doctors of the World, there were 11,000 more people than in the previous survey. Another 198,000 respondents said they were not insured but, according to the statistical office, have another entitlement to care, for example through social assistance or the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.

Doctors of the World criticizes the fact that the microcensus only covers people with a registered address. More than 80 percent of patients at the organization’s practices for the uninsured are homeless and therefore do not appear in the statistics, it said. According to the organization, those affected also include people without regular residence status, some EU citizens and people who lost their membership after falling behind on contributions. The organization is calling for legal and bureaucratic barriers to accessing care to be removed.