OECD/WHO report on the Swiss health system

[Jefferson23]

NOTE: The Swiss have a universal, highly regulated system of social insurance based on nonprofit private insurance plans. Many consider their system to be superior to ours and one that ours might eventually emulate. Though this message is long, you should save it if you don't have time to read it now. It explains why an "ideal" system based on private health plans is not such a great idea after all.

October 18, 2011
Chapter 2 - Health Insurance
(Excerpts)
In 1996, Switzerland implemented the Health Insurance Law (LAMal), which sought to achieve three main objectives: strengthening solidarity in the Swiss health system, containing health spending, and guaranteeing high-quality coverage.
in full: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/october/oecdwho-report-on-the-swiss-health-system



Comment:

snip* By Don McCanne, MD
It is not clear why so many in the U.S. are enamored of the Swiss health insurance system when this OECD/WHO report confirms that it is highly inefficient and fragmented, with profound administrative waste, inequitably funded, with regressive financing and with wide variations in premiums, has the highest out-of-pocket costs, has an increasing prevalence of managed care intrusions, and is controlled by a private insurance industry that has learned how to game risk selection at significant cost to those on the losing end.

There is one bit of good news buried in this report. A single payer system would correct these deficiencies. Although the report mentions the drawbacks of eliminating consumer choice and inhibiting innovation in insurance products, these are actually advantages. The loss in consumer choice is the loss in the ability to choose from a large market of private health plans which often take away provider choice. Eliminating the plans returns choice of providers to the patient. Innovations in insurance products are designed to benefit the private insurers by gaming the system to the detriment of the patients. That's innovation that they can do without.

in full: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/october/oecdwho-report-on-the-swiss-health-system

[rurallib]

1. mark to come back to tomorrow

[Jefferson23]

2. It's a good read with a lot to consider for our own aspirations. n/t