Germans have long been proud of their well-padded welfare net, cheerfully expanded during their post-war "Economic Miracle" to stamp out poverty in one of the world's wealthiest nations.
But even enthusiastic supporters of the cradle-to-grave protection were aghast to learn recently that a 64-year-old former bank director was getting US$2,200 each month from the German welfare office for a comfortable life in Miami Beach.
The tale of "Florida Rolf", as the welfare recipient is known, became front-page news and the smiling, tanned German expatriate revelled in his fame, saying he couldn't stand living in Germany because it made him depressed. He left 24 years ago.
The case has sparked a heated debate about the flaws in the generous but cash-strapped welfare system and dominated newspaper headlines and television talk shows for weeks.
"Germans shouldn't get so worked up about the few dollars I'm getting," said Rolf, who even convinced German welfare to pay US$150 a month for a cleaning woman to top off a care-free lifestyle in sunny Florida most Germans can only dream about.
"I'm only fully utilizing the possibilities provided by German law," he told Bild newspaper, which photographed him in Bermuda shorts before a day at a nearby beach.
It was the latest example of abuse of Germany's overburdened welfare system, which, like the country's health care system, is being squeezed by the rising costs of an ageing population and now faces government cutbacks to salvage it.
No welfare for Germans under Palm trees
Public outrage is prompting fast changes to that particular chapter of the welfare law originally set up to assist Germans abroad who fled the Nazis.
"This is a truly terrible example of system abuse," said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose family relied on welfare when he was a child. "We're going to change it so that confidence in the state and in social justice aren't ruined."
Schroeder's government took steps to change the law in record time, with legislation flying through cabinet and headed for parliament within two weeks of its drafting.
"Florida Rolf" now must return to rainy Germany by April or lose his benefits.
Besides Rolf, there are another 958 Germans living abroad who receive welfare benefits totalling 4.3 million euros (US$4.65 million), still modest compared with the four million welfare recipients in Germany who get some 25.5 billion euros each year.
The government says it's determined to prevent similar abuse of the system in future.
"We're not going to be paying out welfare to people living under palm trees anymore," said Ulla Schmidt, Schroeder's minister for social affairs in presenting the draft legislation for the measure already known as the "Lex Rolf."
In the future, she said, welfare payments will be restricted to a smaller circle of Germans living abroad -- those persecuted by the Nazis, those confined to hospital, in jail, or German women locked in custody battles with husbands abroad.
"It's only taken one black sheep named `Florida Rolf' to bring the whole system into disrepute and nourish prejudices that welfare recipients are lazy scoundrels," wrote the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper in an editorial.
Viagra for Karlheinz,Breasts for Juliette
While the government might have closed one legal loophole, newspapers and television programs have been filled with similarly discouraging tales of welfare recipients leading comfortable lives at state expense -- and perfectly legally.
In a highly publicized case, a Frankfurt court ruled that the local welfare office must pay for Viagra pills for a 54-year-old former cook named Karlheinz Friedrich. He has needed treatment for impotence since a car crash in 1997.
The state health insurance system has been paying for regular potency injections but Friedrich petitioned for a daily Viagra pill instead, which would cost 500 euros per month. After the welfare office rejected the bid, he went to court and won.
"Once a day is completely normal," the man told the court. He said he and his wife want children and will fight any appeals court rulings that reduce their taxpayer-funded sex to less than once a day.
"Otherwise I'll sue again," said Friedrich, who got tips from a best-selling book, My Right to Welfare Assistance.
Another celebrated case of welfare exploitation stirred public ire earlier this year. A popular singer named Juliette Schoppmann admitted she had her breast implants paid for by health insurers.
It raised eyebrows about the treatment Germans receive with state help, especially in an era when the economy has stopped growing and the term "miracle" hasn't been used in years.
But government cuts to services have met angry resistance from patients loath to give up treatments such as health spa visits, cooking courses, and even insurer-funded taxi fares.
With his benefits about to be cut, "Florida Rolf" said he isn't sure what he's going to do.
"I don't have any social ties to Germany anymore," he said in an interview with Germany's ARD television on Tuesday. "I don't have any ties to Germany at all."
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