background How much are the Dutch prepared to pay for mental health care? Nearly every year the content of the basic health insurance package alters as a results of new insights and scientific and medical progress. Up till now, the government of the Netherlands has largely ignored the wishes of its people regarding which services should be included in or dropped from the basis health care package.
aim To describe a method for measuring the Dutch population’s willingness to pay (wtp) for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health insurance package and, at the same time, to present the first empirical findings obtained by this method.
method Data were collected in 2013 via a printed questionnaire on which the respondent was asked to declare how much he or she would be prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care in the basic health care package.
results The average per capita amount that the Dutch were prepared to pay for the inclusion of mental health care was found be € 25.90 per month.
conclusion The average amount that a Dutch national was prepared to pay for having mental health care included in the basic package was higher that the actual per capita amount paid for mental health care. In 2013 these costs were € 15.80 per capita per month.