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Politicians do not manage to find recipes against the growing health care costs. Lobbying plays a role in this.
Health insurance premiums have been increasing for years. The Federal Council recently had to announce a massive increase in premiums. So far, health politicians have not been able to curb costs.
There are demographic reasons for this, as well as medical progress. But there is also political failure behind it.
Some lucrative mandates
More precisely: It is the many stakeholders who influence the Health Commission directly via council members. For Lobbywatch’s Otto Hostettler, it is clear why organizations and sectors from the healthcare sector bequeath the commission members lucrative mandates of over 100,000 francs a year. “Preliminary decisions on the laws are made in this commission. This is where the industries can have an effective influence,” says Hostettler.
The number of paid mandates in the influential subject commissions is significantly higher than in other commissions. The Health Commission is highly rated for a number of reasons. Because in the healthcare sector there are many players who earn a lot of money. And the industry is growing. In addition, the healthcare market is heavily regulated.
The Health Commission has an above-average number of politicians with health insurance mandates. They usually advocate lower premiums. There are many more mandates if you add together those mandates that are generally used to expand services. For example, doctors, hospitals, patient and disabled organizations.
In Parliament we have a majority of people who represent the service provider side.
Lorenz Hess, who himself has a health insurance mandate, says: “In Parliament we have a majority of people who represent the service provider side.” When it comes to reducing benefits, nobody wants to take the first step.
The security of supply and the quality of the healthcare system must be guaranteed.
For example, Damian Müller, who has a mandate with the Swiss Medical Association FMH, rejects restrictions on doctors: “The security of supply and the quality of the healthcare system must be guaranteed.”
Expertise required, but…
Lukas Golder regularly conducts stakeholder surveys and has insight into lobbying work. “There is an increasing number of professional lobby organizations,” he says. These would already harden the fronts in the Commission itself. “You can’t find big solutions like that anymore. Reforms become impossible.”
Well understood: The expertise of the lobby organizations is in demand when it comes to legislation. Their knowledge is even actively collated by the administration, for example during consultations on draft laws. And: The cantons themselves are also among the lobbyists, especially in the healthcare sector.
More trust through more transparency
A move by the Central Council of States, Beat Rieder, wanted to put an end to commission lobbying: anyone who sits on a commission should not be allowed to accept paid mandates from an industry affected by the commission. The advance should be without a chance.
But more trust can also be created in other ways, says Otto Hostettler from Lobbywatch: “This includes disclosing the amount of compensation paid to council members. That voters can get an idea of how a decision was made.”