Expert: Learn from Dutch healthcare

HOUSTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The United States can learn from the Dutch Health Insurance System model, an expert says.

Co-author Pauline V. Rosenau, a professor of management, policy and community health at The University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, examines the 2006 Dutch health insurance reform -- based on regulated competition and requiring individuals to purchase basic insurance policies.

The structure of the Dutch model provides insight into the effects that universal healthcare reform could have in the United States, Rosenau says.

U.S. policymakers seeking to establish universal healthcare should be aware that it may not control costs, Rosenau says.

In the Netherlands, insurance companies have experienced losses on basic insurance policies, healthcare providers oppose the reforms and public satisfaction is not high, Rosenau says.

Nonetheless, the quality and access to Dutch healthcare is sometimes better while the healthcare cost per person is half of the U.S. amount, Rosenau says.

"The Netherlands is the best test of market competition-based health insurance reform to date," Rosenau says in a statement. "But U.S. policymakers should be careful with this form of universal coverage because it has failed, so far, to reduce costs or improve quality.

The findings are published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.