Three European countries—Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—are particularly useful examples for the United States to consider in the upcoming debate on healthcare reform, a congressional briefing was told on 14 November.

Each nation relies substantially on regulated competition for the purchase of health insurance in the marketplace and uses a public-private mix of providers and payers, which is regulated by a decentralised system through national and regional activities.

“No country is the best or the worst, each performs well on some measures and worse on others. There are a lot of opportunities for learning from other countries and approaches,” said the moderator Robin Osborn, vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, the charity that cosponsored the …