How the Dutch harnessed the market to cover everybody.
(Title and all quotes from www.vox.com/...)
Jan 2020.
Everyone on private insurance? It must suck, right?
According to Vox:
The average cost to a Dutch citizen for health insurance is about 1,400 euros, or $1,615, annually.
That is low! What about the poor?
People with lower incomes get additional government assistance to reduce their payments.
Is everyone covered?
The system has more or less delivered universal coverage. More than 99 percent of Dutch people have insurance; people with conscientious objections are exempted from the mandate to buy insurance.
Deductibles must be high, right?
The annual deductible is today capped at €385 ($429)
That’s all? What if you want a lower payments in exchange for a higher deductible?
although people can choose to pay a lower monthly premium in exchange for a higher deductible — up to €885 ($980).
How does this system stack up with other Western democracies?
The Netherlands has built one of the highest-quality health care systems in the world, ranking third globally on one measure: a quality and access index on avoiding preventable deaths.
Wow. So it is very “tightly regulated”, Vox says. Are doctors suffering from low pay?
They make about $120,400 on average, compared to the $211,800 an average US primary care doctor makes.
Beautiful.