As the United States debates health reform, the Dutch and German health systems have been increasingly put forward as potential models. These nations have achieved universal coverage through competition among nongovernmental insurers within a governing regulatory framework, along with government subsidies for those with low incomes.
In interviews conducted in November and published April 8 on the Health Affairs web site, the health ministers from the Netherlands and Germany discuss their systems with three respected U.S. health policy analysts. Dutch minister of public health, well-being, and sport Ab Klink talks with Alain Enthoven, the Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management Emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. German minister of health Ulla Schmidt speaks with Tsung-Mei Cheng, the host and executive editor of the International Forum at Princeton’s International Center, and Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Both Klink and Schmidt highlight efforts their countries are making to increase competition in their health systems. For example, Klink tells Enthoven: “Competition now is especially at the level of the insurance companies. Still, many of the prices for care are fixed by the Dutch government. What we are trying to do in the coming years is to free prices, on the one hand, and to make insurance polices transparent, so that these two issues form pillars of the competition that we want to achieve.”
