Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

World TravelERs Going Global: the Netherlands

By Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP | on April 20, 2022 | 0 Comment
WorldTravelERs
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version

Last time on World TravelERs we visited with ACEP Now columnist Dr. Ryan Radecki in New Zealand, a country whose health care system runs similar to Britain’s National Health Service due in part to their inclusion in the United Kingdom’s Commonwealth of Nations. Also termed the Beveridge system, named after William Beveridge who designed the UK system, New Zealand’s system is also strikingly similar to the United States’ Veterans Affairs Medical Centers.

You Might Also Like
  • Be Like The Netherlands?
  • ACEP18 Global Attendance
  • Travelers Could Carry Drug-Resistant Bacteria Long after Returning Home
Explore This Issue
ACEP Now: Vol 41 – No 04 – April 2022

This month we visit the Netherlands, a nation of 17 million people famous for its tulips, windmills, and wooden clogs. The Dutch possess a different type of health care system, one which began in 1941, and followed the German (or Bismarck) model. In 2006, the Netherlands merged the traditional public and private insurance markets into one universal social health insurance program that is underpinned by nonprofit private insurance and mandatory coverage. The Dutch model is a compulsory system that leaves fewer than 0.2 percent of people uninsured—all residents are required to purchase statutory health insurance from private insurers and all insurers are required to accept all applicants.

If that sounds familiar to you, well, it should because that’s what the Affordable Care Act (ACA) did several years ago for the individual insurance market in the United States. Just like with the ACA, a standard benefit package in the Netherlands includes things like hospital care, physician care, home nursing, mental health care, and prescription drugs. However, there are some things that are left out. People tend to purchase supplementary insurance to cover items such as dental care, alternative medicine, physiotherapy, eyeglasses, or contraceptives.

To learn more about the Dutch health care system, I spoke with Dr. Terrence Mulligan, adjunct professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, vice president for the International Federation for Emergency Medicine, and a board member for the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Mulligan lived in the Netherlands from July 2006 through November 2010 and went back two to three months per year over a period of three years.

In the U.S., we tend to see people that lose their insurance or are in between insurances. Do people wind up in between insurance at all or is it just a seamless transition if they want to go from one insurer to another insurer without having any detriment to their health care plan?

Dr. Terry Mulligan: Everybody there has private health insurance and you are mandated by the government to have private insurance. If you cannot afford it, then you are enrolled in government subsidy programs that work with you to determine when, why, and how it is that you can’t afford it. One of the big barriers to buying private insurance in the U.S. is the unbelievably enormous cost. I think it’s somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 for a family if you just buy it on the open market. In the Netherlands, my whole family was covered at a cost of about 1,000 euros a year out of pocket. My employer paid for another 1,000 or so, and the government picked up 2,000 or 3,000 of that. It is a private insurance market, but it’s mostly provided by government subsidy.

Pages: 1 2 | Single Page

Topics: international medicineWorldTravelERs

Related

  • U.S. Doc Takes EM Job in New Zealand, Discusses Their Health Care System

    March 21, 2022 - 3 Comments

Current Issue

ACEP Now: June 2025 (Digital)

Read More

About the Author

Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP

A graduate of Morehouse College, Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP earned his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine. He holds a master’s degree from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He completed his residency training at George Washington University where he served as chief resident. Currently, Dr. Dark is an associate professor at the Henry J. N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Dark is the 2017 recipient of the Texas Medical Association’s C. Frank Webber Award, a 2019 American College of Emergency Physicians Choosing Wisely Champion, the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association 2021 Joseph F. Waeckerle Alumni of the Year Award, one of emergency medicine’s Top 45 Under 45, and on Elemental’s List of 50 Experts to Trust in a Pandemic. He is currently on the Board of Directors for Doctors for America and the medical editor-in-chief for ACEP Now, the official voice of emergency medicine. .

View this author's posts »

No Responses to “World TravelERs Going Global: the Netherlands”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603