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3/22/06

The Brussels Journal: Two Months of Competition in Dutch Healthcare

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Two Months of Competition in Dutch Healthcare

The liberalisation of healthcare in the Netherlands appears to be successful. In an attempt to reduce the cost of healthcare the Dutch government has allowed the existing sickness funds to compete as of 1 January. Within two months one quarter of Dutch families had switched to different health insurers. There is no sign of the chaos which was predicted. Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende’s centre-right government made the liberalisation of healthcare a priority from the start. They identified healthcare as one of the last "Stalinist strongholds" in the Dutch welfare system. It was run by the government, which set down detailed targets for hospitals, including how many operations they were allowed to perform. One of the victims of the two months of competitive health insurance is AGIS, a Dutch insurance company that lost half a million policies to cheaper funds, with an ensuing loss of several hundred jobs. AGIS is accusing the other funds of cheating at the game by dumping their prices for the start of the liberalisation programme, in order to attract new clients, but with the intention of raising prices significantly next year.

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