Health care attitudes and institutional trust during the COVID-19 crisis : Evidence from the case of Germany

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a tremendous challenge to health care systems around the globe. Using original panel survey data for the case of Germany, this paper studies how specific trust in the health care system’s ability to cope with this crisis has evolved over the course of the pandemic. It also examines whether this specific form of trust is associated with general political trust, as well as individual willingness to support additional public spending on health care. The paper finds that levels of trust in the health care system, both regarding efficiency and fairness, are relatively high and have (so far) remained stable or even slightly increased. The analysis also reveals a strong positive association between general political trust and specific trust in the health care system. In contrast, willingness to increase health care spending—taking into account fiscal constraints—is less strongly related to perceptions of performance and political trust.