Things that are different, so far, part 3

Ever since we decided to move to the Netherlands a large number of our friends in the US greeted the news with a common refrain, "at least now you will be able to get health care". You see I am a Type 1 diabetic and because of this it has been years since I have had health insurance in the US. My last employer offered health insurance and having a pre-existing condition wouldn't have prevented me from obtaining insurance through my employer. But for the first year the insurance would not have covered anything relating to my diabetes. I had went through this before and found that during that first year an insurance company can find a way to claim that anything that happens to you is related to diabetes. So I would have worthless insurance that I would have to pay full price for, not a great deal. This predicament is no longer a problem for me.

Today my husband and myself signed up for health insurance through his employer. Some people may be surprised that it came through an employer. They might also find it shocking that our insurance isn't provided by the government. Our insurance comes from a private company. We get to choose our own doctors, choose which pharmacy we purchase our medications from, decide what we wanted our deductibles to be, and thoroughly customize our health care coverage. Is this not what you were expecting from socialized medicine? That's because it isn't socialized medicine. You see the Dutch government doesn't own the pharmacies or hospitals, the doctors don't work for the government, the insurance companies aren't part of the government (although the government does directly provide health care coverage for the poor and elderly like the US government does through Medicare and Medicaid). Socialism involves government ownership of an industry, so this is not socialized health care, it is simply highly regulated health care. It is actually fairly similar to Obamacare (it was even more similar to Obamacare before the legislation was dramatically reduced in effectiveness for solely political reasons by the Republicans), and according to everyone we have spoken with, it actually works.

So at the insurance office today we were allowed to choose which deductible we were comfortable with. After we meet the deductible for the year 100% of our health care expenses will be covered. My deductible is €350 per year and since 2/3rds of the year is already gone 2/3rds of my deductible is as well. That's right, they pro-rate your deductible. I will have to find a general practitioner, known as a "house doctor" here and yes, they make house calls, and I assumed the first visit to my new doctor would eat up most of my deductible. When I said this to the woman helping us at the insurance office she looked confused, you see visits to your house doctor are always 100% covered by your health insurance. She told us that these visits were at no cost to us because if you are sick you need to go do the doctor and if you had to pay to see your house doctor you might not go. I consider this amazingly logical logic. We also found out that medications are VASTLY cheaper here, same drugs made by the same companies just completely different prices. We decided to skip dental insurance for now based on the fact that dental care is actually really affordable. Need a filling? €50.

Many Americans upon hearing the low cost of medical care here might assume that no one would want to be a health care provider, interestingly there doesn't seem to be any shortage of health care providers here. The biggest problem is that it can take a small amount of work to find a house doctor, not because there aren't plenty of them, but because the government limits the maximum number of patients a house doctor can see to help make sure that all of the patients receive good care. Waiting for health care isn't really a problem here as obviously, even with the government's regulations and price controls, health care providers can still make a decent living. Doctors may not be millionaires here, but they aren't hurting either.

So we get low costs, great care, lots of choice, and limited waiting for care, how is this a bad thing America? Why should only the wealthy receive good health care? Why has America created a health care caste system where having a small bank account is almost a symptom of a terminal illness? America can do better, the question is why doesn't it want to?