Patients should be able to find out the cost of their treatment via their health insurance company, health minister Edith Schippers said on Thursday, during a second day of debate on the health ministry budget for 2012.

The minister said she had already told insurance companies to provide an overview of charges and would do so again, ‘otherwise we will have to force the issue’, she is quoted as saying.
VVD MPs said earlier this week that patients should be made aware how much hospital treatment costs, as part of efforts to keep spending on healthcare under control.