Health care financing in the Netherlands: recent changes and future options

Following a short outline of the structure of the Dutch health care system and the regulatory activities of the government, budgeting in health care is being considered at three levels: the national level, the level of the health care institution and the intermediate level of the region. The authors foresee that regional budgeting and regional policy-making will become more important. Instead of a nation-wide introduction of the Health Services Act, which means more government interference at regional and local levels in health care, the authors believe that a re-orientation on market-principles as the dominating mechanism in resource allocation in health care will take place in the coming years. This will coincide with strengthening the position of sickness funds and private insurers at the cost of that of provincial and local government.