With the new year starting, the Dutch government is implementing a number of new laws and changing some existing ones. Below is an explanation of changes to the law applying to health and healthcare.
The maximum care allowance is increasing as of January 1st, 2018. For single people the maximum allowance increases by 73 euros to 1,139 euros, and for couples by 79 euros to 2,121 euros.
Health insurers no longer make enough money, or even suffer losses, from supplemental health insurance policies, according to Dutch central bank DNB. Insurers may stop offering these supplemental policies in the future, which will result in higher healthcare costs for Dutch consumers, NOS reports.
The vast majority of Dutch consumers can save a lot of money on their basic health insurance policy, according to a study by the Netherlands authority on consumers and markets ACM and the Dutch healthcare authority NZa, NU.nl reports.
Last year three quarters of Dutch were on a basic health insurance policy for which there was a cheaper, comparable alternative. On average, Dutch pay about 100 euros per year too much for their basic health insurance.
Almost all health insurers in the Netherlands have so-called "clone policies" among their offer, consumers' association Consumentenbond warns. These are policies from the same provider that have different names, but only actually differ in price. That's not allowed in the Netherlands, but insurers get away with it by offering these policies through subsidiaries or intermediaries, according to the association, RTL Nieuws reports.
A citizens' intiative to introduce basic income in the Netherlands in 2018 will be submitted to parliament on Tuesday. The initiative has 58,800 signatures, significantly more than the 40 thousand needed to submit a proposal to parliament.
From next year the basic health insurance will only reimburse breast implants for transgender women without any breast growth at all, according to a letter from Health Minister Edith Schippers. This means that transgender women whose sex-change hormone therapy triggered any breast growth at all, no matter how minimal, will not be reimbursed for breast enlargement
Wealthier people are more likely to visit the dentist than people with money troubles. Last year 70 percent of people in the lowest income groups visited the dentist, compared to 90 percent of people in the highest income groups, according to a survey done by Statistics Netherlands.
Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health plans to add the NIPT-test to the basic health insurance package from January 1st next year, she wrote in a letter to parliament on Wednesday. "If the Health Council has no major objections, then I intend to give authorization for the NIPT test to be the first option. I expect to do this before the summer", she wrote
Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health wants health insurers to be more transparent by reducing the number of different health insurance polices they offer to people.
Based on the advice of Care Institute Netherlands, Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health has decided to keep maternity care in the basic health care package.
An advisory board of Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health thinks that the second opinion must remain as fully reimbursed care in the basic healthcare package. The concept advice of the Healthcare Institute states that patients are entitled to a review by a second specialist.
The SP is advocating for a health insurance for everyone. SP Parliament Member Renske Leijten has proposed the plan "Then National Healthcare Provision", which includes lower premiums, higher quality of care and taking the power away from insurance companies.
