Foreign ministers emphasize the need for regulated competition among private insurers.

Dutch and German health systems are emerging as potential models and have achieved universal coverage through competition among nongovernmental insurers, along with government subsidies for those with low incomes, according to an article published recently on the Health Affairs Web site.

Health ministers from the Netherlands and Germany recently discussed their health systems with three leading U.S. health policy analysts. Dutch minister Ab Klink met with Alain Enthoven, the professor of public and private management emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

German Minister of Health Ulla Schmidt met with Tsung-Mei Cheng, the host and executive editor of the International Forum at Princeton University’s International Center, and Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison professor of political economy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Both Klink and Schmidt highlighted efforts their countries are making to increase competition in their health systems, the article says. “Competition now is … at the level of the insurance companies,” Klink said. “Still, many of the prices for care are fixed by the Dutch government. What we are trying to do in the coming years is to free prices, on the one hand, and to make insurance policies transparent so that these two issues form pillars of the competition that we want to achieve.”

Schmidt described several changes to the German system over the past decade, including a 2007 reform designed to increase competition among the nation’s “sickness funds” insurers.