The funny thing is I can't even think of any policies of Merkel that are equivalent to Sanders' proposals, even disregarding the whole issues of political inertia favoring the status quo before someone comes in office and difficulty of an apples to apples comparison, things that lead to the idiocy of claiming things like "The NHS goes further than Sanders wants for healthcare so David Cameron or Theresa May are to the left of Sanders", which is kind of like saying that George W. Bush was more left wing than FDR. But for Merkel, even based on that flimsy logic it doesn't work.
For example the minimum wage in Germany is 1,473 Euros a month. That comes out to about 340 a week, so if one works a 40 hour week about 8.5/hour. That converts to a bit less than $9.50/hour. Hmmm, a far cry from $15/hour.
And the German healthcare system is still based around private insurance companies and is basically just a boosted version of Obamacare. It's nothing like Sanders' proposal and single-payer.
And talking about policies towards banks...we don't even need to go there.
Firstly, you are basing your argument on the assumption that the living wage in Germany is the same as the living wage in the US. If I am not mistaken the living wage is lower in Germany compared to the US. Like in the UK where the minimum wage is only a few pounds less than the living wage, if I am not mistaken a similar system is in place in Germany.
Secondly, every German citizen has a right to free universal healthcare unlike the system we have here in the US where we have millions of people uninsured or underinsured. Furthermore in the US we have 45,000 people die every year because of lack of healthcare in Germany that number is next to zero.
And as to how the system is based on private insurance companies is true, but France has private insurance companies as well, so now are you going to say that Hollande is to the right of Sanders? Just because Sanders has proposed full government run healthcare doesn't mean that his position is to the left of Merkel or Hollande, it is just a different way of running the exact same program. Just like how Ed Milliband was to quite comfortably to the right of Hollande but he supported less privatization of the British NHS, that doesn't make him to the left of Hollande, he just held a belief in a different way of running the same system of single payer healthcare. And unlike the US most Germans are covered by regional Sickness Funds not private insurance, 88% by last count, so only those with very specific medical needs opt into private insurance. As well as the fact that the German private healthcare market is very closely regulated unlike Obamacare which is just another system to hand monopolies to corporations.
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