IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v141y2024ics0168851023002543.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financing COVID-19-related health care costs in the Dutch competitive health system during 2020 and 2021: Overall experiences and policy recommendations for improving health system resilience

Author

Listed:
  • Schut, Frederik T
  • Franken, Frédérique M.E.
  • van der Geest, Stéphanie A.
  • Varkevisser, Marco

Abstract

The Dutch health system is based on the principles of managed (or regulated) competition, meaning that competing risk bearing insurers and providers negotiate contracts on the price, quantity and quality of care. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge external shock to the health system which potentially distorted the conditions required for fair competition. Therefore, an important question is to what extent was the competitive Dutch health system resilient to the financial shock caused by the pandemic? Overall, the Dutch competitive health system proved to be sufficiently flexible and resilient at absorbing the financial shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 due to an effective combination of regulatory and self-regulatory measures. However, based on the overall experiences in the Netherlands, from the health policy perspective improvements are needed aimed at (i) refining the catastrophic costs clause included in the Health Insurance Act, (ii) reducing the vulnerability of the Dutch risk equalisation system to distortions due to unforeseen catastrophic health care costs, and (iii) establishing more equal financial risk sharing between health insurers and health care providers. These improvements are also relevant for other countries with a health system based on the principles of managed (or regulated) competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Schut, Frederik T & Franken, Frédérique M.E. & van der Geest, Stéphanie A. & Varkevisser, Marco, 2024. "Financing COVID-19-related health care costs in the Dutch competitive health system during 2020 and 2021: Overall experiences and policy recommendations for improving health system resilience," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:141:y:2024:i:c:s0168851023002543
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2023.104969
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851023002543
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.healthpol.2023.104969?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard C. Kleef & Mieke Reuser, 2021. "How the COVID-19 pandemic can distort risk adjustment of health plan payment," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(7), pages 1005-1016, September.
    2. Marco Varkevisser & Frédérique Franken & Stéphanie Geest & Erik Schut, 2023. "Competition and collaboration in health care: reconciling the irreconcilable? Lessons from The Netherlands," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(7), pages 1019-1021, September.
    3. Wallenburg, Iris & Helderman, Jan-Kees & Jeurissen, Patrick & Bal, Roland, 2022. "Unmasking a health care system: the Dutch policy response to the Covid-19 crisis," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 27-36, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:141:y:2024:i:c:s0168851023002543. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.