Netherlands International Healthcare Comparisons

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

International Comparisons - Netherlands

The Netherlands follows a universal health insurance system that includes public and private coverages (Tikkanen et al., 2020). According to the 2004 World Health Assembly (WHA), universal health coverage is defined as access to health intervention for all on an equal basis. Prevention, cure, and rehabilitation are provided at a reasonable price (Kuipers, van de Pas & Krumeich, 2022). Netherlands’ national government takes responsibility for monitoring access, quality, and setting healthcare costs for the common public. The basic healthcare facilities encompass hospitalization, nursing interventions, home nursing, mental caregiving, and costs of medicines. The government provides total coverage for children under 18 years. Adults pay the premium of their coverage, which is fixed for every individual, compared to the high premiums and deductibles otherwise charged from people in other countries.

When comparisons are made with the US, some crucial elements of the Netherlands healthcare system should be noted. The universal healthcare system is a primary strength of this mechanism that has benefited health insurers the most compared with other stakeholders, especially due to the Netherlands healthcare reform in 2006 in universal coverage (de Vries et al., 2021). Also, the US spends less on social security, and numerous disparities are found in its healthcare system (The Commonwealth Fund, 2017). Social services revolving around housing, medical support, transportation, etc., can improve the health of some underserved segments of the population, such as old age people or African Americans. For instance, if the transportation system is accessible to all races of the US population, their health could improve with better mobility and lower medical costs that the government might incur on such minorities. Moreover, after-hours care and strictness on the citizens to get themselves registered for the insurance granted by the government to avoid uninsured individuals should be other factors learned from the Netherlands healthcare system and bringing improvement in that of the US.