What America Should Learn From the Swiss Health Care System
An alternative to nationalized health care.
In response to my essay, Nationalized Health Care is a Bad Idea, I received several comments akin to “Most other developed nations have nationalized health care and they’re doing fine, so why not us?”
This is also the sentiment Bernie Sanders expresses to justify his plan for Universal Health Care.
In my aforementioned essay, I express why I believe these other developed nations have replaced one problematic aspect of health care, cost, with other problematic aspects, long wait times and low-quality care.
I also propose a solution to address all of those problems at once, government regulation of monopolies and a dynamic comparative advantage for new health care insurers and providers.
In this essay, I would like to offer an examination of one of these “other developed nations” that is often ignored by advocates of nationalized health care for its successful preservation of private insurance and care, Switzerland.
Specifically, I will focus on aspects of Swiss health care that I think could be implemented in the US, in addition to my initial proposal, to design an even better system.
First though, to address a point that will no doubt be brought up in the responses, though Switzerland has one of the top-ranked health care systems in the world, the costs for its care are going up each year.
Like the US, Switzerland is having cost problems. However, unlike in the US, this is likely due to too much government regulation (preventing private providers from earning profits on the minimum coverage has led to insurers running out of money) and a population that chooses to spend a lot. Now onto Swiss policy.
Transparency
In Switzerland, the government has mandated that all “prices be made public.” This not only forces private companies to compete for better prices to draw in business but it also helps citizens make educated choices about the care they buy.
A major problem with the health care system in the US is the lack of transparency about costs and coverage, leading people to spend much more than they need to, driving up costs overall. The US government should require more honesty and simplicity from our health care corporations, as the Swiss do.
Individualism
“Swiss citizens buy insurance for themselves; there are no employer-sponsored or government-run insurance programs.” The Swiss system is built on the idea of individual responsibility and the idea that the people know better about themselves than the government does. This is an ideology Americans hold too.
By putting more responsibility onto the consumers to choose and pay for their own care, people would also be more frugal with their choices; this, in turn, would enhance the free market and boost those insurers and providers that offer the best value.
“Only one tenth of Americans buy insurance for themselves, the rest getting coverage through their employers or the government.” This has led to hidden costs, ambiguous coverage, low-quality care, and feelings of helplessness when the institutions people put their trust in don’t provide. To combat these problems, America should adopt a system closer to that of the Swiss, promoting individual responsibility and intelligent purchasing choices.
Support
Despite their focus on individualism, the Swiss also value mutual support for their less well-off citizens. “There’s no government-run “public option,” but Swiss taxpayers subsidize the cost of insurance for lower-income families.” This is part of the reason “99.5% of Swiss citizens have health insurance.”
With costs being so high in the US, about 30 million non-elderly Americans don’t have health insurance. If, after all the other reforms drive down the cost of insurance, we, like the Swiss, are willing to adopt a system to help people under the poverty line in our country, we too could achieve a near-universally insured population.
And in case anyone has the counter-argument that people will take advantage of this charity, “Two-thirds of the Swiss receive no health-insurance subsidies at all, and the subsidies that are received tend to be relatively small except for the very poor.”
So, in summary, my proposed policy to fix health care in the US is:
A) end monopolies in the industry
B) grow the private sector with government-supported businesses
C) force corporations to be transparent about their prices and coverage
D) encourage individualism to ensure smarter buying
E) as a country, support our lower-income citizens
I think these are reasonable requests and they achieve “the policy priorities of liberals (universal coverage; regulated insurance market) and of conservatives (low government health spending; privately-managed health care).”
Let’s be honest, only a bipartisan solution to health care will work; without that, each new administration will simply attack and dismantle the policy of the last. As a united people who don’t want to have to worry about their health care all the time, let’s demand a solution that works for everyone.
Note from the editor: The views expressed by any Thoughts writer on political issues are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Thoughts as a whole.