Minister wants cheap health insurance

Health Minister Edith Schippers wants to introduce a new, cheaper health insurance policy that would allow insurers to decide which doctor or care institution the patient should go to. This policy would be added to the existing refund policy, with which the patient has complete freedom of choice, and 'natura' policy, with which only care from contracted care institutions is fully insured. Patients will have to pay part of the bill themselves if they choose to go to a different doctor or institution. Care institutions not contracted by health insurance providers are not going to be insured under the new policy. This is why the premium is also lower. The government hopes to cut €1 billion, towards which this new policy should help. If that works, Schippers will not have to perform cuts to the basic insurance package, which she said herself that she would do. A group of general practitioners has said that they will strike as a protest against the scrapping of free choice of doctor by the Cabinet. Minister Schippers says that free choice will remain, because people do not have to choose the new policy. The new policy will only increase choice, Schippers says.