Double Dutch: Two Reads From Other Smart People

Jonathan Cohn chooses the same title for New Republic piece on public health care Going Dutch: life after the public option, as the New York Times chose for their in-depth magazine read about the Netherlands last spring: Going Dutch: How I Learned to Love the European Welfare State.

In fact, the Netherlands “has managed to build a popular and successful universal health care program based entirely on private insurance.” There’s a catch, though, with extensive government regulation and watching over insurers, preventing the practice known as “cherry-picking” — which can ultimately destabilize the entire insurance system.

The Dutch health care insurance system also equalizes risk, taking away the financial rewards for shunning unhealthy patients. (How uncapitalist!) Companies with excessive young and healthy insured pay a fee, while insurers with more unhealthy or older insured get a subsidy.

I’m clueless as to whether or not America is actually serious about making significant changes in our health care system. And I’m not one of those folks who believes that America can’t look across either the Atlantic or Pacific for guidance, especially on affordable, high-quality health care for all.

Help us, my friends.

With the word “socialism” bandied about with great fervor these days, as the ultimate squash to any alternative views on how we might change the country, you might enjoy reading the original NYTimes article Going Dutch: How I Learned to Love the European Welfare State.

Being informed about words and how they actually operate in today’s world requires a mind in genuine search of information and insights. This article steps up to the plate, tackling more than a few nastyisms that the s-word injects into American debate around the best way forward.

Even Mr. “Moon River” Andy Williams is calling POTUS a socialist, pardon me a Marxist.

If you read Going Dutch: How I Learned to Love the European Welfare State. for heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone. Big Brother is watching you, and like Joseph McCarthy, he just may be a Republican. Forewarned is forearmed, I always say. Anne