If you desire to exist peacefully, you should really just stick to talking about the weather these days. Don’t strain the fragile equanimity of your neighbors, friends, co-workers or in-laws by mentioning anything that relates to the politics of the day. Certainly don’t mention the Affordable Care Act – or Obama Care, as it is known.

As the debate over health care has raged over the past two years, it appears that little can be done to bridge the divide that has plagued our nation in the quest to provide an ideal health system. Perhaps we need to expand our myopic view and abandon the idea that we can fix it ourselves.

Uwe E. Reinhardt, economics professor at Princeton, writes that what we need are two different health insurance systems for different Americans. By this, he means “not Americans who differ by age or ability to pay, but Americans with different notions of a just society.”

Reinhardt looks to Germany’s model of health care as an inspiration and potential solution to the maddening debate over health care on our shores.

Germany’s population of close to 82 million is served by two distinct health insurance systems:

1. The Statutory Health Insurance System, founded by in 1883 by Otto von Bismarck

2. A private commercial health insurance system

Germany’s statutory health system is the oldest in the world, according to Reinhardt, and it serves as a model for many of the countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

In Germany, the system consists of 154 autonomous, private, nonprofit sickness funds among which individuals can choose freely, which means the funds compete with one another. Unlike Americans, who often are limited to networks of providers, Germans have a complete freedom of choice of provider under the statutory system.

The sickness funds provide health insurance to more than 85 percent of the population. They are overseen by boards composed of employers and unions.

Germany’s private insurance system is composed of 46 health companies that operate on commercial principles. They provide coverage to another 11 percent of the population. Some individuals and families in the statutory system often purchase supplementary coverage for superior amenities not covered in the statutory system.

In 2009, these companies accounted for less than 10 percent of total national health spending in Germany, which amounted to $4,200 per capita in purchasing power parity. That is slightly more than half of American spending of $7,900, even though Germany’s population is much older than ours on average.

According to Reinhardt, the “statutory system is financed on the principle of social solidarity – that is, strictly on the basis of ability to pay.”

Employees covered by the statutory system must pay a mandated contribution rate of 8.2 percent of gross wages, while employers must contribute 7.3 percent, for a total contribution of 15.5 percent of gross wages up to a maximum of about $59,700. Earnings above that threshold are not subject to this levy.

Private insurers draw their financing from per-capita premiums that reflect a person’s age, gender and health status at the time of enrollment, but thereafter can be raised only as a function of age, not changing health status.

Recent federal laws have forced private insurers to levy on younger people higher premiums than their actuarial risk can justify to build up an old-age reserve, thus preventing premiums from climbing too rapidly with age.

By law, every German must have coverage for a prescribed benefit package. German employees earning less than $66,350 per year are compulsorily insured under the statutory system.

Employees above that threshold are free to opt out of the statutory system and purchase private, commercial coverage, but if they do, they cannot return to the statutory system unless they are paupers. The intent is to minimize gaming of the insurance system by individuals.

Reinhardt states that this model gives Americans three options:

1. Join the community-rated health insurance offered through the insurance exchange called for in the Affordable Care Act.

2. Remain in a private insurance system that is free to charge in any year “actuarially fair” premiums, premiums that reflect the applicant’s health status and spending for that year, and free to refuse issuing a policy altogether.

3. Simply self-insure, or remain uninsured.

Reinhardt calls the exchange system the “social insurance track” because it leans heavily toward social insurance, and the second and third options the “rugged individualist track” because they cater to Americans with individualist preferences.

Reinhardt believes the door to the social insurance track should be closed to individuals who select the individualist tracks unless they become truly pauperized.

According to him, “a return then would have to be allowed because for better or worse, our civic sentiments preclude letting anyone – even a myopic rugged individualist – die for want of critically needed health care.”

An approach such as the German model is certainly one we should consider. In a world of ideas, we owe it to ourselves to expand our view.

As we have painfully witnessed over the past few years, the solutions are not always found on our shores. Clearly, Americans want everything: insurance for everyone, the right of individual choice and the option to choose nothing. Some of us just want a little peace – an end to the maddening debate.

Joaquin Garcia is the director of public affairs at Embrace Hospice in San Antonio, Texas.