The Netherlands and Switzerland also rely on for-profit health insurers

Reader Response: Health Care Reform in Steps

The United States is not, in fact, the only rich country where for-profit companies provide health insurance. The Netherlands and Switzerland also rely on for-profit health insurers. But there are crucial differences between their systems and the American system. In those countries, health insurers are regulated much more closely (to prevent them from cherry-picking the healthiest customers) and individuals are required to have insurance.

Further reading on this subject: The stalled Wyden-Bennett bill (which I described last week) would try to replicate the Dutch or Swiss system. My colleague Gardiner Harris discussed those systems in a 2007 article. Frontline looked at the issue last year. More recently, Jonathan Cohn added detail in a Boston Globe article. Paul Krugman has discussed this issue here and here. Finally, the Commonwealth Fund analyzed the Dutch and Swiss systems in this report.

In short, it does seem possible to have for-profit insurers and still have universal coverage and lower medical costs than the United States now does.

One other issue: Several readers wrote to me to ask about the Republicans’ apparent lack of interest in making malpractice reform a part of a bipartisan health bill. Karen Tumulty of Time magazine had some more details.

Posted via web from Jim Nichols