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Cheaper, but not the whole menu: the FDP’s idea for a budget health insurance company does not stand out among the other parties.
water instead of champagne. FDP Vice-President Andri Silberschmidt sums up his party’s idea with this formula: Today, all premium payers paid for the entire medical menu. However, many did not want to use everything. So if you accept cutbacks, you should be able to save significantly on health insurance.
With the budget model, the deductible would then be higher, the electronic patient dossier would be mandatory and you could conclude multi-year contracts with a health insurance company, i.e. fix the premium over several years, says Silberschmidt: “You could also opt for generic drugs to be mandatory and do without original drugs , which would keep costs down.”
SP: Solidarity at risk
Lower costs equal lower premiums – that’s how the model works for the health insurance companies and for the premium payers, says Silberschmidt. But the alarm bells are ringing in the parties of the centre-left camp: because today the healthy help finance the system for the sick.
The system is not suitable for releasing individual groups from solidarity and thus breaking up the financing.
National Councilor Flavia Wasserfallen (SP/BE), member of the Health Commission, therefore considers the idea of the FDP to be dangerous: “The idea breaks with the idea of solidarity, because illness can affect everyone.” The system is not suitable for dismissing individual groups from solidarity and thus breaking up the financing. According to her, chronically ill and elderly people would certainly suffer greatly from it.
The wealthy could save on premiums and still afford treatment in an emergency.
The FDP wants special health insurance for the wealthy, criticizes National Councilor Christian Lohr (Mitte/TG), also a member of the Health Commission. Because they could save premiums and still afford medical treatment in an emergency. The less well-off could not do this, which means that the FDP proposal would lead to more inequality: “It must not go in a direction where there is a two-class society.”
FDP refers to alternative models
Silberschmidt does not accept the accusation of two-tier medicine: This criticism makes no sense at all. Because it is already possible today to accept compromises with alternative insurance models and to pay lower premiums. “We are only asking for this practice to be expanded.” An example is the family doctor model.
This balloon probably rose with a lot of hot summer air, but will cool down very quickly in autumn.
The reactions of the other parties show that this path will be rocky. Because the liberal proposal does not even find support on the right. This balloon probably rose with a lot of hot summer air, but will cool down very quickly in autumn, states Councilor Hannes Germann (SVP/SH).
The search for the big hit continues
A trial balloon in election year. This makes it clear that the rising health insurance premiums are increasingly becoming a political issue and are spurring on the parties to come up with solutions: After all, they want to prove to their voters that they are committed to them.
SP and the center have each launched an initiative on the subject: the “Premium Relief Initiative” and the “Cost Control Initiative”. Parliament clearly rejected both proposals and is now working on two counter-proposals. Conclusion: Big shots have a hard time in Swiss health policy.