Near the end of the 2015, Ron Meyer, newly elected as leader of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands (SP), informed his comrades that they “have to do things differently . . . Not a little bit differently, but completely different.” With his experience as a campaigner for the country’s largest trade union federation, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging (FNV), and as an organizer for a youth movement to raise the minimum wage, Meyer wanted to launch a militant, SP-led campaign to de-privatize the Dutch health-care system.

Rallying around the slogan “Nationaal ZorgFonds” (National Health Care Funds), the party’s initiative kicked off six months after Meyer’s speech. Some quarter-million supporters allied with political parties, unions, and social movements to release a common appeal: the state must take over all health-care costs. Ten thousand protesters marched through the capital in mid-February to back up the demand.

The left-leaning Party for the Animals (PvdD), the 50PLUS pensioners’ party, and the Pirate Party announced their support for the campaign, while the Labour Party (PvdA) and the FNV debated it internally.