In a new series on The Commonwealth Fund Blog, Jonathan Cohn, senior editor at the New Republic, will explore the health care systems of four countries: the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In his first installment, Cohn looked at the Dutch health care system, which includes many features of a high-performance health system. "It provides virtually everybody with high-quality and convenient medical care, and at a much cheaper price than the U.S. system—per capita health spending in the Netherlands in 2009 was only $4,914, compared with $7,960 in the U.S." Like the U.S., the primary source of coverage in the Netherlands is private insurance, though it's made available through a highly regulated marketplace.
