lelt's talk about Germanwing and conditions if you are sick. Nobody talks about it.
Actually, it is mentioned in post #8 already. After the first six weeks at full pay have passed there will be up to 78 weeks of maximum €2887,50 (not more than 70% of the gross pay) for the same diagnosis (if you get a different diagnosis you get another 78 weeks) paid by public healthcare, if an employee is in private healthcare he has to insure that himself, however he can choose to get a much higher pay, and most do as it is quite cheap to insure.
That is general employment law in germany by the way.
@de facto
Always gross, net situations are not comparable as it is possible to change your tax load a lot.