After completing yesterday’s post on noncompliance with health insurance mandates in other countries, I ran across updated statistics from Statistics Netherlands on the number of people there who aren’t paying their premiums, even though they signed up for a health care package.
Statistics on defaulters in 2008, put the number of Dutch over 18 who have failed to pay their insurance bills at 280,000, 16 percent more than the previous year and up from 190,000 in 2006. This group constitutes 2.2 percent of the adult population. Men have made up most of the rise in defaulters.
The year 2008 saw 108,000 new defaulters, probably in part because of the economic crisis, with 63 percent being men. But perhaps the most shocking number is how many people have been in default since the new health care system went into effect – in 2006. Over 95 thousand Dutch have shirked their premiums for a full three years, and yet are still considered to be insured. I think we can all agree that it is absurd to allow people who have defaulted on their obligations to remain on the insurance roles or to enroll with a new insurance company.
Default rates in the Netherlands vary considerably by ethnic background, however, with 14.6 percent of Antilleans and Arubans in default in 2008 vs. 1.6 percent for Native Dutch. In total, about 60 percent of people who have not paid their premiums are Native Dutch, a share that has remained steady.
A similar trend is observed when you look at people in the Netherlands who have not signed up for insurance at all, despite the fact that it is mandatory. Of those with foreign background, 3.6 percent are uninsured vs. a mere 0.4 percent of Native Dutch. The majority of those with no coverage were in their twenties and thirties.
