Financial, Staffing and Societal Sustainability of Dutch Health Care : An Urgent Need for Clear Choices

Abstract

This open access book analyzes how sound choices can be made in Dutch health care policies, and shows why they are necessary, urgent, and even inevitable. Analyzing the current functioning and funding of the Dutch health care system, this book shows how three dimensions of sustainability – financial, staffing and societal – are under increasing pressure. This study explores priority setting in health care and calls for well-informed, clear and sometimes uncompromising choices in the allocation of means and personnel. This is necessary in order to maintain accessible and high-quality care for all, and to improve public health. Making balanced choices in health care is of particular importance to vulnerable groups whose voices may not be heard as readily or effectively in the public debate, and whose interests are more easily crowded out. Prioritizing in the domain of public health care is first and foremost a political responsibility, but also one for health care providers across the system and ultimately also for citizens. While this work focuses on the Netherlands, similar processes are at play across the developed economies, making it broadly relevant to policy makers, health care professionals and health care (policy) researchers grappling with the questions surrounding the sustainability of public health care.