Europe Learns from the US

Jan 31 12:36 UTC 2006

Employers in the Netherlands are preparing for the new national health 
care system that will legally require all individuals to secure a 
minimum level of private insurance coverage beginning on January 1, 
2006. 

The health care reforms, under the Health Insurance Act of 2005, are 
designed to achieve a number of objectives, including greater choice of 
providers, better quality care and lower insurance cost through 
increased market competition in a self-regulated market.

response 2 of 96:

Jan 31 13:32 UTC 2006

My ass.

response 4 of 96:

Feb 1 08:59 UTC 2006

Well, the problem with private individual health insurance in the U.S. 
is one of cherry picking and adverse selection.  The way the game plays 
out means that if you really need it, no one will sell it to you -- and 
if the insurance companies didn't cherry-pick, it'd be ridiculously 
expensive, because only the people who really needed it would sign up.  
It sounds like the Netherlands is trying to get around this by 
requiring the companies to take all comers, and also requiring everyone 
to buy in.  It makes some kind of sense -- the reason group insurance 
works so well is because you tend to have enough healthy people in the 
group to offset the sick ones, and making it mandatory should tend to 
ensure this.  (Single-payer is the extreme case of this, with everyone 
in the country in one big group.  On the other end, small businesses 
have problems getting decent insurance rates because their group size 
is too small.) 
 
It'll be interesting to see how well it works.  My gut feeling is that 
when you reach this level of regulation, what you have doesn't really 
resemble what we think of as a free market anymore -- it's more like a 
socialized system that's been outsourced. 
 
The main concern I'd have is that this might result in the situation we 
have with cell plans, or the Medicare prescription drug benefit -- one 
where everyone's offering a similar product, so they compete by 
offering a huge array of confusing plans such that no one can really 
compare them to figure out which is best.  I think Scott Adams called 
this a "confuseopoly." 

response 6 of 96:

Feb 1 11:55 UTC 2006

You are missing the point.

This is not about health insurance.

It is about at long last realizing the utter folly of thinking that it 
is the state's responsibility to provide (even if it could) for 
individual needs.

Socialism is a dead end.

response 8 of 96:

Feb 1 13:32 UTC 2006

So are individuals who cannot take care of themselves supposed to just go off
and die (unassisted, of course)?  How about schoolchildren whose parents
cannot afford private tuition?  Retired people who lose their savings in the
stock market?  

response 10 of 96:

Feb 1 15:35 UTC 2006

re #6 klg if an individual cannot provide for his own needs, if he is old or
sick or whatever, if it is not then the state's responsibility to care for
them, whose responsibility is it?  Klg acts as if it is some crime to be tired
or poor or sick.  Where's the compassion?  What is the purpose of even having
a "state" if it is not to help its people take care of themselves?  You act
as if our government should only have been organized for the sole purpose of
forming an army and nothing else

response 12 of 96:

Feb 1 15:44 UTC 2006

is klg against the state paying billions of dollars in tax money for the
lifetime of psychiatric care some of these veterans coming back from Iraq will
need?  Some of these guys will never be emotionally stable again due to their
experiences.  Is it "socialism" to take care of these guys?

response 14 of 96:

Feb 1 16:31 UTC 2006

Is the government paying for health care different from the government paying
for education?  Is klg then against public schools, paid for by taxpayers that
kids go to for free?  Is he against student loans for college? the government
pays for that too with taxes.  If klg thinks people with no money have no
right to healthcare, he must also think they have no right to an education

response 16 of 96:

Feb 1 17:13 UTC 2006

> Is the government paying for health care different from the government 
> paying for education?

Yes, but it shouldn't be. Let the government provide health care and
education for all children. Then once they become adults, they can pay
for it themselves.

response 18 of 96:

Feb 1 17:16 UTC 2006

Good call Todd.

response 20 of 96:

Feb 1 17:23 UTC 2006

It would probably cause group insurance premiums to rise even more
quickly, as elderly people are likely to have more expensive healthcare
requirements than younger people.  I suppose it would help Medicare and
Medicaid as some people could be moved off those programs.  I suspect it
would lead to hiring discrimination against immigrants, whose parents
would be more likely to avail themselves of the service (since they may
not be eligible for Medicare.)

response 22 of 96:

Feb 1 18:18 UTC 2006

re19:  that's a great indictment of the domestic
       spying program and the iraq war, kerry!

response 24 of 96:

Feb 1 18:42 UTC 2006

Fortunately, self-serving, politically biased meddling by presidential 
administrations is pretty rare in Washington, DC.  It is almost unheard 
of that there is more than one such at any time.  We can therefore 
proceed with confidence in irrevocably handing over the health care of 
all of us to the federal government.

I wonder if federal representatives and employees will absent 
themselves from participation in, and dependence on, a national health 
insurance program in favor of another program, as was done with Social 
Security?  I sure hope so!  I wouldn't be able to sleep if government 
clerks and Senators and other such important people were forced into 
the same health insurance or retirement program that my family is 
required to use.