but....but....i thought you all said 'this will never happen here'. well guess what, NL will soon have ALL the exact same problems as the US; super expensive health insurance, collapsing housing market, skyrocketing unemployment, etc.
well done done Dutch voters! very well done indeed. this is almost as impressive as the attempt to form the EU without causing major global problems in the financial world.

wow, this is awful - what are the medical providers doing with the insurance money/taxes? Between taxes and insurance payments, my family pay around EUR900 EVERY month and yet I get nothing but bills that I have to pay myself. So far, an odd trip to see a physio or a GP appointment seem to be the only things I or my husband actually get as part of this huge payment. Say what you like about the UKs healthcare but at least you can be ill without worrying about the bill afterwards.

"plans to save €1.6bn on the cost of healthcare" Can also be read as:
1.6 billion euros divided by 16 million inhabitants in the country = 100 euros they have to RIP OFF each inhabitant to meet their goal.

I have an idea. Why not, instead ripping off regular people, reduce the Euro commissionars, euro parliamentrists, and so on, salaries by 50%? They would still get a lot of money and we would all breathe a bit lighter.

@Bill: I totally agree with you except you actually get decent health care in the US as long as you can afford it. The cost of health insurance here is climbing drastically, but the quality is lacking. I don't want to pay 1500 euros/year in health insurance premium just to be told to take paracetamol and sleep it off.

@Kar, It's a great idea. There's only one problem, the people who have to vote this through are the same greedy $&!##* who are ripping us off every day!
They are not goint to vote themselves a lower wage.
Just remember ity was our own government (among others) who put them there!
Politicians will never volunteer to take a cut in wages!

And while they are at it, why not have the European ministers eat at McDonalds instead of the expensive restaurants we pay for.. that will save millions too!

The thing is no election result will change this - the EU commissioners have given their orders

In a recent article on this very subject it was reported that most of the increases in costs related to health over the past years were due to the "inefficiencies" of the insurance based system - where it was not in the interest of the insurance companies to be "cost effective".
How to solve it?
We can see the well considered solution

I could never understand how it works, perhaps any one could explain? We buy health insurance from private companies, premium and own risk is only agreement between me and my (private) health insurance provider. How does increasing own risk park make savings for the treasury?

We should be very careful about what we wish for. Come september we should be even more careful who we vote for. The age of tolerance is long gone I'm afraid and that works both ways.

OMG! - €400,00 own risk? I'm still wondering about what happened that no claims policy!?

Reading this bit of gloomy news is enough to give us all high blood pressure from even more stress!

Factually, many of us visit the doctor due to something minor that we don't understand that leads to stress related paranoia. In many cases we come away with paracetamol or just reassurance.

For the last 6 years I have used the internet instead of rushing to the doctor. Muscle pain, cramps, caffeine overdose, flu, bad stomach etc..Think first & save your money!

Brilliant. Give people a larger incentive to avoid going to the doctor until it's too late to be avoided and the problem is much more expensive. Exactly the sort of decision I'd expect from politicians.

Another economy booster in times of recession...what a joke!
And I love the article above this..where it states that the health insurance companies do not even know what they are paying for!

I totally agree with kar. They earn such high salaries + bonuses, but the little person needs to suck it up. I wish my salary would rise as frequently as everything increases...

I foresee many people getting very ill and even dying because they will not be able to afford this. I think it is totally out of order and the government must think again where to make these savings.

with regard to uk health insurance, its not true! my father was told by "boots" the chemist that he had used too many needles for his insulin pen and they refused to give him any more (he is 90), he had to hobble back to his gp and beg for more, they in turn sent him to a hospital and they gave him 3 needles and asked him to be careful as they were very expensive... 10 days later he was allowed more!..england is a lottery depends where you live as to the heath care you are given, so dont go to berkshire/hampshire or surrey

So even more people with possibly chronic illnesses who may not be able to afford to pay the €400 eigen risico will risk not going for help and end up costing the system far more or even worse dying? Lovely logic Netherlands..keep it up.

So why do I need insurance then? I am NEVER ill, so I will never go past the 400 euro threshold....so once again I am a NET contributor to the Netherlands, rather than a beneficiary.

In lieu of all jumping on this complaint wagon, which is bad karma, that I'm in agreement with you, let's look at what healthcare costs have down the last couple of years.
Anyone that reads any editorial (not meaning that pitiful cheap so called newspapers like Metro) must have seen a fractal. What fractal: that the enormous rising costs are pegged to the each year more newly and elaborate new features which are helping more people, but makes the ledger tilt. PEOPLE ONLY CONSUME HEALTHCARE WITHOUT RECOGNISING THE SURGE IN COSTS! YOU WANNA LIVE IN A SOCIAL WELFARE STATE LIKE HOLLAND? Deal with the costs in a time like this where the GDP shrunk by 10 per cent. THINK!

Dutch insurance is anyway just a rip-off. It takes a week to prepare a blood analysis and more than a month to have a first appointment with a specialist (not a house doctor who prescribes paracetamol from all diseases). So far for all more or less sophisticated medical treatment I had to return to my country. So, increasing "own risk" does not make any change for expats. But Dutch people don't have a possibility to have treatment in a country with a normal health care and fully equipped and stuffed polyclinic in every district of a city or town...

How does this save the government money?
It saves the insurance companies money.

Agree, Kar. Starting to cut the costs of politics and their salaries would be a good starting, but why not cutting also the Royal family costs? Evey year each person living in the Netherlands pays thousands euro, and how they are used? Where are these money?

Health Insurance? Which Insurance? I still have thousands - yes thousands - of euros unpaid from 2011 - for specialist visits - including a gynecologist + mammography - they never paid for it. Asked for additional "originals" which I sent and never heard back (700 EU I paid myself). Before living in Netherlands I lived in France - on a scale of 1 to 10, comparing the Dutch and the French 'health' system, both in quality and cost, France scores "9.5" and Holland scores "3". And it's only getting worse!

oh...instead...why not increase it to 800 or even 1000!!!why even inform regular people?? They increase the amount of insurance every freaking year by 13+ euros...whether you use their HOSPITAL FACILITIES or not. Its gonna be tough living in this country.

Why 400 Euro excess? Before companies paid the health care now we pay ourselves. We have the highest medical costs in Europe, we have the highest fuel bills, energy costs are rising, taxes are painful and the tax office is a complete joke! The cant manage to calculate anything correctly and they have a marching army that grows and grows in size and incompetence. Come on Dutch use those votes to sort you house out !

Paying 300 euros as health insurance every month for a small family of three and still, hard to convince GP to prescribe a single medicine and even if he/she does that is not covered under health insurance. I am sure I am not alone. A nice charity, but unfortunately to already rich insurance companies.

Private health care costs Ireland for eg, the average cost of 1,000 euros per year for a private insurance plan covering a family of (five) Here in The Netherlands, for 'one adult' it cost €100 per month. Rip off!

As health care spending went up 3.2% last year, and Aegon health care profits were up, what are the health companies doing with the 10%-27% price increase they got this year?

2011
100 euros - monthly health insurance (1,200e total per year if you don't need treatment)
170 euros - 2011 annual own risk (1,370e total per year if you do need treatment)

2012
110 euros - monthly health insurance (1,320e total per year if you don't need treatment, 10% increase)
220 euros - annual own risk - (1,540e, total per year, 12.4% increase if you do need treatment)
200 euros - annual mental health own risk - (1,740 e total per year, 27% increase if you need treatment)