When I sit here, in my nice cosy Dutch house, next to a canal, and watch CNN and listen to American’s fight over health care, I sit back and laugh at them. What a rediculous people. You have two groups of people, called the Republicans and Democrats that are so far out of touch with people that they are just laughable, or more seriously, absurd.
The answer to health care is not too difficult, unless you watch American media, where only two possible solutions are presented. The first being nationalized healthcare (which would scare this shit out of anyone who has ever dealt with the state or federal governments), the second being private HMOs (which scare the shit out of anyone who makes less than $30,000 a year.
Most people I tell that I do not have nationalized Dutch health insurance a boggled. Yes, it is true; Holland is one of the few European countries that does not have a national healthcare scheme. Moreover, Holland does not even require your employer to pay part of your health care. What Holland does have is a government who regulates health care prices. I pay about 80€ a month for health insurance, and pay no premium.
Now, as Americans, we are raised to think that something like this is evil: The government regulating the market. But the US government does this already; it bails out airline companies, subsidizes defense contracts, the mail system, Amtrak, it even controls the price of produce through a very thorough elaborate subsidy scheme. Even more, we are taught that it is evil if the government tells us to do something, like get insurance. This was raised to me by Tucker Cooperson on MSNBC who stated that it was his personal choice not to have insurance during his wife's first pregnancy (an easy choice to make when your family has millions of dollars). Did he also not have insurance on his car? Of course he did, because the government has said it is illegal not to have car insurance.
Here is a solution that should work.
1. The government requires every person to hold insurance. Exceptions go to people who cannot afford 100$ a month, who get public insurance. Meanwhile insurance goes to a tier system the highest being at 125$ a month (you employer still pays most of the premium)
2. The government regulates healthcare costs. No more 13,000$ a year for aids medication, no more 17,000$ a month for cancer treatment.
3. The government pumps money into medical research and development, to offset costs of loss of profit (this would be around 1billion$ a year)
4. Children and adults in college or younger, get covered for a minimal fee.
5. People who spend have insurance, yet use no services, receive a rebate from their carrier (around 15%)
7. Doctors make slightly lower pay checks (under 150,000$/year).
8. Partial tort reform, to curb lawsuits larger than 100,000$. Torts will only be heard if true negligence is proven, not unforeseeable accidents.
This is the essential basis of the Dutch privatized health care system. Everyone is insured, and it is not run by the government, ensuring great care in what the US government calls on the embassy website, above modern medical standards.
Even if this system would not work, it is called compromise, something these absurd politicians refuse indulge.
