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The sharp increase in premiums affects everyone equally. The political left thinks it’s unfair – and comes up with a well-known demand: the amount of the premiums should be adjusted to income.
In Switzerland today, a top manager basically pays the same health insurance premiums as a construction worker – as long as he does not benefit from premium reductions. “This is a lack of solidarity,” says Green Party Councilor Maya Graf. For them the pain threshold has been reached. “Many people can no longer pay their health insurance premiums.”
Families up to the lower middle class are particularly affected, says Graf. “And the premium reductions have also failed in that they don’t reach these people at all.” A system change towards an income-related premium is therefore advisable. Graf has submitted a corresponding proposal to the Council of States. An identical proposal is pending in the National Council.
The Greens and SP are putting pressure on it
The SP is also currently campaigning for income-related bonuses. The SP parliamentary group presidium calculated in the CH Media newspapers that 85 percent of the population could be relieved in this way.
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The demand for income-related premiums is not new. It has been rejected several times in Parliament in recent years. The last time the people voted against income-related bonuses was in 2007.
Keystone/Martin Rüetschi
Resistance is now rising again: FDP Councilor of States Josef Dittli says that it is not true that more justice can be achieved with income-dependent premiums. The current system with premium reductions is fair because these are largely financed through taxes. So a balance is already taking place.
Dittli also fears that this system change will further increase healthcare costs: “Many people who no longer pay premiums go to the doctor for every Bobo and thus drive up healthcare costs. That can not be.”
Health economist Willy Oggier also does not believe that income-related premiums would bring more solidarity than the current system. “It is very likely that the opposite will happen: those who are supposed to pay 10,000 or 20,000 francs for the premiums, depending on their income, will politically enforce the opt-out.” This means that the wealthy would look for ways to free themselves from the high premiums they have to pay.
In Germany, for example, where there are income-dependent premiums, rich people could say goodbye to basic insurance and only pay into private health insurance, says Oggier. Solidarity would then be zero. The current system with premium reductions, however, is based on solidarity. These premium reductions must now be expanded and optimized so that lower middle classes also benefit.
Citizen doubts about the system
But in politics, trust in the current system of capitated bonuses plus reduced premiums is dwindling – and not just among the political left. Recently, the Bernese SVP health director Pierre-Alain Schnegg even expressed his sympathy for income-dependent premiums.
The system is close to failure.
And Mitte President Gerhard Pfister said last week in the Bundeshaus: “The system is close to failure. If even an SVP health minister finds this idea worth considering, I don’t see why I shouldn’t find it too.”
The statements of the Bern Health Director and the Center President show: In today’s situation, the demand for income-related premiums is likely to be met with more goodwill in parliament and among the population than in the past.