Number of people without medical insurance coverage stable

On 1 May last year, 152 thousand Dutch residents had no insurance against medical costs, almost as many as last year. The distribution of uninsured by gender and age also hardly changed, but there are differences with respect to ethnic background. In the period May 2008–May 2009, the number of uninsured with a foreign background declined by nearly 6 thousand. At the same time, the number of native Dutch without a medical insurance coverage increased by more than 5 thousand.

On 1 May last year, 0.3 percent of native Dutch were uninsured against medical costs, as opposed to 3.5 percent of people with a foreign background.  The increase in uninsured people with a foreign background is entirely attributable to the first-generation. The number of people without medical insurance coverage in the second generation declined by more than a thousand. Since the introduction of the Health Care Insurance Act on 1 January 2006, 53 thousand people had no coverage against medical expenses at any of the reference dates.

In addition to people who have no health insurance, there are people who fail to pay their health insurance contribution. By the end of 2009, there were 318.5 thousand defaulters, i.e. an increase by nearly 62 thousand relative to the end of 2008.

People without medical insurance coverage

Jan Smit and Mirthe Bronsveld-de Groot