Researcher from Erasmus University Medical Center Reports Details of New Studies and Findings in the Area of Health Insurance (Can Voluntary Health Insurance for Non-reimbursed Expensive New Treatments Be Just?): Health Insurance

2023 JUL 31 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in health insurance. According to news reporting originating from Rotterdam, Netherlands, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Public healthcare systems are increasingly refusing (temporarily) to reimburse newly approved medical treatments of insufficient or uncertain cost-effectiveness.”

Financial supporters for this research include Koningin Wilhelmina Fonds Kankerbestrijding.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Erasmus University Medical Center: “As both patient demand for these treatments and their list prices increase, a market might arise for voluntary additional health insurance (VHI) that covers effective but (very) expensive medical treatments. In this paper, we evaluate such potential future practices of VHI in public healthcare systems from a justice perspective. We find that direct (telic) egalitarian objections to unequal access to expensive treatments based on different ability to afford VHI do not stand up to scrutiny. However, such unequal access might lead to loss of self-respect among individuals, or loss of fraternity within society, rendering it more difficult for citizens to interact on equal moral footing. This would be problematic from a relational egalitarian perspective. Moreover, the introduction of VHI might turn out to have negative consequences for the comprehensiveness and/or the quality of the public healthcare services that are offered to all patients equally through basic health insurance.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “These consequences must be weighed against potential health gains and the value of liberty. We conclude that governments should be careful when considering the introduction of VHI in public healthcare systems.”

For more information on this research see: Can Voluntary Health Insurance for Non-reimbursed Expensive New Treatments Be Just?. Public Health Ethics, 2023. The publisher for Public Health Ethics is Oxford University Press (OUP).

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phad015.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Jilles Smids, Department of Medical Ethics, Philosophy and History of Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Center, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Additional authors for this research include Eline M Bunnik.

ORCID is an identifier for authors and includes bibliographic information. The following is ORCID information for the authors of this research: Jilles Smids (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1259-0883), Eline M Bunnik (http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1481-6222).

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