There has to be a catch. Maybe high copays? 1500$ a year is ridiculously cheap
(The U.S. is nearly $10k a year)
However, on average the U.S. government (thus taxpayer) funds half of the health care costs, meaning that the private sector has to fund about $5k per person per year. That would suggest the SAG employer is paying $3500 a year and the SAG employee $1500 a year.
On top of that you have a ~€380 deductible. Everything except medicine costs goes from this deductible first. If you really trust your health (or have the money to cover it) you can raise the deductible to ~€800, which will drop your monthly premium by ~€20.
GP visits are free and act as a sort of filter for access to the ‘real’ healthcare system. Anything minor (prescriptions for various minor diseases, mole removal, etc) goes through him and if he thinks something warrants further research you get blood work done or see a specialist, waiting times usually 1 week, 2 weeks tops.
All in all its a really nice ‘hybrid’ sort of system. It isn’t 100% socialized like some countries around us, but the end result is that we have the best healthcare system in Europe (and thus probably the world) :)
The Netherlands spends $5385 per year per person on healthcare, 80% of that is spent by the government.
The UK spends $4192 per year, again 80% is by the government. The UK has trickier cost areas to handle too (healthcare in Scottish islands is far more per person than in Rotterdam)
Measuring the objective quality of a health care system is almost impossible (it varies dramatically on your subjective priorities), let alone measuring value per dollar, but I don't think I've ever seen one that claims the Netherlands is better than Scanadavian ones.
The problem with comparing worldwide is that the WHO does an annual health report, but this focusses on a different aspect each year, instead of a general outlay. It has been done in 2000, with data from 1993-1997. The Netherlands switched from a completely socialised system ('Ziekenfonds') to the hybrid system in 2006. A lot of our improvements are because of that, and thus aren't in the 2000 WHO ranking.
The only other source I could find is the Legatum Institute prosperity index[2], which puts us 6th behind: Luxembourg, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan, Austria, Sweden, Norway. As their healthcare research is only part of a bigger picture (and thus less focused), I tend to give it less weight.
As a sidenote, aside from a small bit of extra pride its not very important where a country sits in the top 15, all these countries their healthcare systems can be regarded as top notch. The only places to attain a higher level of care would be in (usually foreign) private institutions, which come with such high costs that they are only accessible to an elite few.
[1]https://healthpowerhouse.com/media/EHCI-2017/EHCI-2017-repor...
Sweden didn't shoot up until 2010.
The Netherlands has spent a lot on healthcare, especially after 2006 - not as much as Norway (which I suspect has higher costs due to sparsely populated areas), Switzerland, and Luxemburg, but more than the rest of Europe. If you pay more, you get more.
Are you sure the benefits of your hybrid system aren't because you increased health spending by over 50% (about 7% pa) from 2004 to 2010, where Sweden only increased by about 30% (about 4% pa)?