Healthcare in the Netherlands
A 2008 article in the journal "Health Affairs" suggested that the Dutch health system, which combines mandatory universal coverage with competing private health plans, could serve as a model for reform in the US. However,
an assessment of the 2006 Dutch health insurance reforms published in Duke University's "Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law" in 2008 raised concerns. The analysis found that market-based competition in healthcare may not have the advantages over more publicly based single payer models that were originally envisioned for the reforms:
Single-payer healthcare
The United States National Health Care Act is a perennial piece of legislation introduced many times in the United States House of Representatives by then Representative John Conyers (D-MI). The act would establish a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, the rough equivalent of Canada's Medicare, the United Kingdom's National Health Service, and Taiwan's Bureau of National Health Insurance, among other examples. The bill was first introduced in 2003 and has been reintroduced in each Congress since. During the 2009 health care debates over the bill that became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, H.R. 676 was expected to be debated and voted upon by the House in September 2009, but was never debated. In the wake of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, in which a push for universal healthcare featured prominently, single-payer proposals gained traction. Conyers reintroduced his bill in the House of Representatives in January 2017. Four months later, the bill was supported by 112 co-sponsors, surpassing for the first time the 25% mark of co-sponsorship. In September of the same year, Sanders himself, together with 16 co-sponsors, introduced a Medicare-for-all bill in the Senate (S. 1804). An analysis of a Mercatus Center study of the 2017 proposal by economist Jeffrey Sachs found that "it rightfully and straightforwardly concludes that M4A would provide more health care coverage at lower cost than the status quo, projecting a net reduction in national health expenditures of roughly $2 trillion over a 10-year period (2022-2031), while also enabling increased health care coverage."