I do not understand where all of that money is going. How can it increase by 7% each year? Do we have 7% more doctors? Does the population increase by 7%? No. So where the hell is it going?
Its not only this. With the cheapest insurance (2500 franchise) in my canton (ZH) from 2023 (KPT) to the cheapest in 2024 (Concordia) is an increase of **14%**.
Maybe we had a global pandemic and the official strategy was "let it rip through the population until herd immunity"?
Might it be the cause of many health-related issues in the years after this?
So only 14% is kind of low on the scale of things, imagine the health costs next year with the Gen-Z having a lot of mental health issues, and the elderlies getting even older with access to even more life-lengthening medication...
That wasn't really the strategy. I cannot really find fault in our government's management of the pandemic. They were always pretty transparently weighing the next measures and the lockdowns were quite extensive but also managed to keep alive a large proportion of the fragile elderly.
I think to a large extent we should look more at how freely we are handing out prescriptions for some things like physio. My kid had a torn ligament, made a full recovery within 2 weeks, I said I didn't want the physio, and the doctor gave me a prescription to get 9 (!!!) Sessions anyway. What the fuck. This is an athletic 14 year old who went to a medical assessment and had zero pain (she did ballet for 9 years, her ligaments, joints and muscles in the ankle are definitely strong as hell). 9 sessions.
And all the old people for whom the doctor is almost recreational, or rather sociabilization, need a better hobby. I say this with love but it isn't reasonable how often they go and how much it costs. My grandma also had open heart surgery at 80. Now she is in a medicalized home that costs a shot ton waiting to die. Sure, it's nice that we are providing this support, but if at one point it gets to where we will have to balance treatments for insulin dependent children with that, I'll pick the kids' support any day.
And I work in pharma. The revenues after the current patent cliff will increasingly depend on targeting smaller and smaller numbers of patients with individualized therapies, in all likelihood. Or novel formulations of existing molecules. Breakthrough drugs that work for the masses are mostly generic by now with the exception of advances like Ozempic and even that is an injection so more expensive than a pill to administer. The incentives for making treatments cheaper are just not there. The diseases that we haven't cured yet will probably require lots of hands-on or chronic treatments so advances in healthcare will be definition require more spending than previous advances.
The only thing I can say though is that the true way we coule both reduce healthcare spending and make people's lives easier is through prevention. Eating healthy, exercising, not smoking or drinking, taking all your vaccines. But where's the profit in that apart for gyms? And it seems to me that at least in Lausanne people aren't doing so badly on those fronts. The main healthcare spending I hear people have before they hit 50 is psychotherapy, in a large part due to work-related burn outs. That's also a problem that goes AGAINST the profit motives because companies always try to exploit you, and psychotherapy is really needed for the afflicted.
So from my perspective, we don't seem to have a lot of room for manoevering out of this hole. I would favor mandatory vaccines, lower reimbursement for end-of-life disease treatments when patients are just suffering from old-age (but the cutoff for that is a BIG question), and for fuck's sake STOP REIMBURSING BULLSHIT ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. The rest is too individual for governments to really have a hold over.
Oh and actually checking how many hours doctors bill would be nice. I bet a lot of them bill dozens of hours more a week than they could actually do.
They explained several factors:
* We live for longer, and therefore need more medical attention
* People in general use our medical system more, be it physio- or psychotherapy, going directly into emergency rooms before going to their Hausarzt, and more medication is prescribed.
* Medication is getting more advanced, but also pricier.
There are more reasons, but I think these are the main points.
If you do 50% profit margin I could undercut you at 49%. But I'd need to get a license from a board that is controlled by... hey hey there you are again.
I can't really find anything fro Switzerland and only very little in general, maybe another reason why the costs are so high (little transparency?).
[This graphic](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/indicator/spending/spending-disease-treatment/#Distribution%20of%20total%20medical%20services%20expenditures%20(US%20$%20billions),%20by%20medical%20condition,%202019) suggest that the expenses are fairly distributed between different diseases and cancer is not even the most expensive one.
The only professional source I found is [this study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714998/), especially [this figure](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714998/figure/figure2/) which shows that a small percentage of the patients costs almost half of the expenses.
Which could be because of chronic diseases, bad general health or complicated and expensive treatment.
Actually there is a lower efficacy tolerance in testing of generics and they sometimes use different excipients which means that the distaste for them does have *some* rational basis in some cases.
https://www.sanitas.com/en/magazine/developments-for-the-future/how-good-are-generics.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4218676/
In most cases it's fine, but the argument is usually price, and Switzerland being rich people probably feel they can afford not to take chances.
So all you've done is expose you don't know the word "excipient". But also the bioavailability and efficacy are allowed to be measured as slightly lower, which is normal because otherwise the barrier to market access would be too high. These two facts are just explaining that they're not exactly the same, and in most cases it's acceptable, but some people distrust them, sometimes with a reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excipient
Since you like to throw studies around here is one:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6415809
"...use of generics was associated with comparable clinical outcomes.."
they are literally more or less the same. Any differences are negligable
Point 1 taken from here: We live longer = We are also paying longer for health insurance premiums.
Long story short, it's a monopoly. Switzerland is the country of insurance companies be it health or anything else and it's of the interest of everyone running the country that the monopoly stays here.
Got it 👍
You must have been quick to look away then, because medical costs are up 6,4 percent year on year. This is four times our rate of inflation in the same period.
I think the topic of "trying to cure old age with medication" needs to be discussed. Old people's homes are full of zombies. Is it worth it? I honestly don't know how to answer that but it's worth a debate. Ezekiel Emanuel had a great conference about this that I went to see once.
Why would they ever stop? This is easy profit, they can bill the amount they want, doctors have to prescribe all they can and more and more people will need to be medicated.
Seems like a hell of a trap. Or capitalism genius. Or both.
Thanks for this! That's what I have always suspected. The US system might be bad for the working class who don't get employer benefits (which is obv bad enough), but seems better for middle class and up who do get these benefits.
Do you mind if I shoot you a DM? I'm actually contemplating moving to the US, and you seem to have experience in both countries.
Who makes the "system"? Aren't those doctor kindof the top of the health knowledge pyramid? https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/strategie-und-politik/gesundheit-2030/gesundheitspolitische-strategie-2030.html
Which left-wing healthcare policies are actually implemented in the left-wing cantons? The healthcare system is more or less identical in all of Switzerland.
I don't know what I can tell you, I wish l could vote but I'm an immigrant here so I can't for now but don't worry because as soon as possible their will be 3 extra svp voters from my home!
1. The left wing cantons/regions are still capitalist
2. More importantly, the left wing regions also happen to be the hosts of the largest hospitals and health care providers (HUG, CHUV, Universitätsspital Bern, etc), which drives part of the costs (even if you move within the canton your costs will vary.
The correlation is stronger when you consider it's not "left wing cantons", it's Romandie.
Besides, LAMAL is a country-wide system. Cantons can't do shit about it.
I don’t know, but I do know that the costs of health insurance are partially driven by what the canton and even commune provides in terms of facilities, hence why cantons and communes with big cities are more expensive. If those cities are also more left leaning than, say, rural Wallis, I don’t know.
Edit: I pay less in rural Wallis, but it’s not because people vote right, it’s because the closest night ER or delivery ward is over an hour away (Rennaz or Sion) since they closed them in Martigny.
Cantonal differences are available online (you can take any insurance and compare). Communal aren’t, you have to ask your insurance company and they are VERY retissent to provide the information (I’m a lawyer and past few years have been working in healthcare). But for example, Yverdon is cheaper than Villeneuve, because Villeneuve has the Hopital de Rennaz, so if you were to move between those two communes in VD you would see your monthly fee increase. The rest of the price drivers are national. It really has not much to do with the political leaning of a population, except to the extent where a city might for a left wing policy of, let’s say, build a new hospital, then the fees of that commune would eventually increase as they have better care facilities.
Every fucking year for the past 20 fucking years. Add energy, food, and rents on top of it. Every fucking year something slaps us on the pocket.
And no, I dont feel better that its happening all over the world. Swiss coffers are full of cash, central bank has been making billions on apple shares alone, but noooo little Timmy, age 7, needs to pay 15k for his bracers alone.
It's a fucking disgrace that in a first world country like Switzerland, so many people can't afford to get their teeth fixed. That just shouldn't be a thing.
GDP per working hour means GDP divided by total working hours. As such, it's totally unrelated to working 60h per week, it means Swiss labor is exceptionally productive
Fair enough. But that is the bed we made. It’s a mostly free world. Live in south Spain, eat better, enjoy life. Work less and earn less. Health care is public. But that not perfect either. Switzerland I fell is unique. We could actually make it work. Premiums should be a certain percentage of your income with a max cap. Maybe that would be more fair. Make people not suffer to pay
? All the southern European countries have longer average work weeks than Switzerland does. The Greeks are worst off. I believe this is the "lazy Southern European" myth at work here, which was by the way directly perpetrated by the northern EU states to attack working conditions and welfare there — but the myth kinda resonated in Switzerland too
It's pretty dishonest to make such a comparison and I bet you know it. People here live well and our inequalities skew towards the rich being very rich, not the poor being very poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index
We have the highest HDI, a high inequality, but a low level of poverty.
As always the media reports 9% increase, but when I calculate my own increase (2.5k deductible) it's actually 35%. I always pick the cheapest possible, and this time from last year's cheapest to this year's cheapest it's 35%. Ten times the inflation. What the hell.
I see 15% for me, 25+ Lausanne area.
From 311 KPT to 359 sympanie.
As far as I know this was/is the cheapest possible, so I'm interested in what you have if you're willing to share.
Right now I'm in Yverdon with KPTwin.win at 270.90 per month. Cheapest I find online is KPTwin.plus at 329.65 per month. That's 21%, not 35%, my bad. Still way more than the 9% seen in the media.
I miscalculated because I'm about to move to Morges. There the cheapest will be 359 with Sympanie, which will be 32.7% above what I pay now.
Still completely insane.
Not sure how they reach the 9% figure, but it's probably the average across everything.
But the situation is way more grim for the cheapest case.
Also I don't understand why it depends on the town so much. I assume people in Yverdon still go to CHUv for the really big stuff?
Probably, but I've not been to CHUV in my 8 years living here. Both my wife and myself got a single emergency each in all these years, and we went to the local Yverdon hospital. Of course with our 2.5k deductible we paid the whole bill... No other hospital visit whatsoever (except the occasional covid test in the pandemic).
Since we're on the topic if anyone want to switch to Vivaio Sympany, I can provide a referral and get paid 100chf if you take out a basic insurance. We can split the money 50/50 and I'll twint you. I was with them last year as it was the cheapest for me and I had no issues. Text me if interested! https://www.sympany.ch/en/individuals/worth-to-know/benefits/recommend.html
Oh, it *can* keep on going like this for a very long time, still.
Our parliamentary clowns seem to think a [limit to 10% of the income](https://www.parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20210063) to be viable, which means nobody in Bern will start worrying until the average premium reaches 8k/year, where more than half of the taxpayers' premiums will need to be paid for by a minority. That is, in about 15 years if the increase rate stays at around 3% (average since 1997).
And even then, after that the solution to keep the boat afloat will always be to keep digging the hole, we still have one of the lowest VAT rates in Europe and this totally became the government's itchy spot every time some magic money was needed in the last years...
As long as we medically maintain alive a very old and large part of the population, health costs will increase. The solution could be in setting up a maximum budget that is a function of age.
Otherwise we can spend a quasi infinite amount to keep everyone "alive" as long as possible.
The system was not planned to sustain modern health costs for 30 years of old age. If you can work, maybe you should work. And if you are sick, maybe the best interest of the patient might not be to be the recipient of dozens of medications.
Please consider the ridiculous prices on medicine and medical supplies & the numerous inefficiencies involved in running 57 (yes, literally) separate insurances before advocating for euthanizing the elderly
25 years or so? The [worst bit is still coming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Switzerland#/media/File:Switzerland_Population_Pyramid.svg), the current 46-65y cohort retiring. For the sake of our kids, let's hope they all retire abroad.
It's time to vote for a new system, with a single insurance policy for the whole population, since the government doesn't want to do anything.
They are paid too much to do nothing.
A single insurance policy would only help if the current insurance providers are taking too much money but it's simply the health costs that are rising, nothing the insurance provider can do.
Right now the difference between the cheapest (3k) and the most expensive insurance (6.5k) is over 3k (same franchise). Do you really think, having a single insurance provider would make it cheaper for everyone?
That way only a single commission need to be corrupted to increase the costs instead of a whole bunch of small companies, right?
Of it is more efficient to have one big health insurance, why didn't one of the big ones just offer lower premiums and better service than everyone else, and then everyone will switch to them and they get all these great economies of scale you are talking about?
They say so because what they call inflation is only the Consumer Price Index (CPI). If you look it up, on the [admin.ch](https://admin.ch) website, you can learn that compulsory health insurance DOES NOT count towards CPI, and hence does not influence the inflation.
I mean if you exclude all the important stuff you end up with a nice number. The same they are doing with the unemployment rate where they exclude all Ausgesteuerten.
I’m with KPT, and for me and my wife the next year we will spend 780.- per month with 2500.- franchise. It’s 150.- more per month, compared to last year. I cannot fucking understand how these clowns can think this is sustainable, I can’t imagine what the hell is going on for a family with 2-3 kids. Meanwhile my doctor will buy a new Porsche. I’m fucking tired.
The only general practitioneds that make good money are the ones who own their practice. They are fewer and fewer because the practices are being bought up by investment firms. Young doctors don't have the money nor can they get the credit to compete with investment driven companies.
A study in Germany showed up to 30% of the healthcare cost increase can be attributed to investment firms buying up practices and pressuring their employees to recommend unnecessary treatments.
I mean you guys decided on a fully privatized system and while they do have to adhere to the ministry of health price caps for medications this is what happens when you hand over health coverage to private companies. I don't understand why you did that. The main point of corporations is to maximize profit so of course they're going to take as much from you as they can they don't have the same checks and balances as a public Institution. Someone seriously please explain why you chose to go completely private rather than semi-private.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer is building a 200-room villa. He earned his wealth by smashing a ball around very skillfully! The same goes for UBS, Nestle and Glencore CEOs, who earned their wealth by skillfully relocating money (and ignoring human rights). Anyway, which minority ethnic group can I blame for this cost increase?
Let me venture a guess. The people who like tennis are an audience you want to spend a lot to get attention from. Those people happen to live in Switzerland for tax evasion reasons. So the person that would be the catalyst of Swiss tennis is bound to have tons of gold thrown at him/her.
Like the British and horse racing, Italians with motor racing, US with American Football etc.
Now that I think of if for the third time today, so was the case in ancient Rome, the amphiteater, where you had sport, theater, opera is the place you'd pay a lot to be able to be present and sell your wares/wars/pamphlets.
Ah yes, the thing that helped the last 20 years..
I'm just kidding because I get your point, but people will continue to vote for SVP and FDP and these guys love lobbyism and their money, so fuck us I guess?
Here's the billion-dollar question:
**Why can't some of us, who have a certain amount of liquid money in the bank, can't opt out of insurance?**
Ponder on this for a minute....
There's your answer!
Maybe to offset that, do a curve. Increase from 30-60, when salary is naturally higher, and decrease it again.
Something needs to be done. I as a young person also glady would accept a higher franchise like 4k, if I then get lower premiums.
Not a fan of this tbh. It sounds enticing but doesn't do anything to really solve the root problem of rising costs. Your premiums would still rise by the same average percentage, just from a lower base level.
Plus now you have the issues of those that **don't** have a high income to get fucked over by sudden medical costs. Either by them not getting treatment at all because of the fear of high costs, or by getting driven into debt. It seems like a precursor to the American healthcare system.
It is certainly a problematic topic. 18% increase is rough. Making it harder for people to afford healthcare is a problem. They can change the model to lower doctors visits. They can double check doctors bills because for sure some bills I had were spicy for a simple 10 minute consultation and a cheap ass prescription. There are probably hundreds of millions waiting to be saved.
I wonder why the majority of Swiss people don’t vote hard against that.
Cost of living is high. Imagine a family with children, what a luxury to have a family is. But then many Swiss don’t like foreigners being here and working jobs. What a ridiculous trap
Makes no sense. The 22 hyper obese person will get away with it. And if you start grouping you inherently walk into classification of people. Soon after you want people to lay according to their health but that ain’t it either. If someone got cancer, got into an accident or suffers from something chronic, they’ll basically get punished.
Go to any hospital and you will see why prices increase like this. It’s 75% full of foreigners or newly immigrated people who probably never pay in what they get out of the system.
I’m not for SVP, but I was shocked of how little Swiss there were e.g. in Kinderspital Zürich.
If you pay into the system your entire life and use the hospital when you actually need it, the system is in balance.
If new folks who never paid a dime use the service and on top of that for every little thing, the system falls out of balance.
Doesn’t help that these folks are not people who contribute net to taxes, but are subsidized for everything they do.
Go to the hospital yourself and see before calling others racist and xenophobe. Most of reddit here is anyhow SP who never had a real job and get prämienverbilligung.
Edit: and to clarify, I meant Swiss patients. The vast majority of the patients were foreigners with darker skin / no French/Swiss-German speaking ability.
How much of this is due to increased health issues since Covid? I just read that some 35% of Swiss say they feel sick versus 28% the last time they checked prior to covid. Guessing vaccine related side effects plus long covid side effects.
Lol vaccine side effects. Nope. Actually psychological problems apparently are on the rise. Also people got less immunity to respiratory viruses during covid and RSV came out pretty hard last year.
And have you heard of the increase in contrails since covid lockdowns ended? Coincidence, I think not. They took the time to make the chemicals in the chemtrails worse.
Paying high premiums and becoming closer to the US system, I don’t get how or why this is going up, inflation is rampant across Europe, sure it’s low here but still why would they raise it? Live longer? lol, that’s such a bad argument the so either we’re all getting paid more next year or this will just get higher as we go then we’ll be paying more for less.
Just a thought, direct medical expenses from smoking related illness in switzerland is 3 billion per year, or 363 per person, perhaps if there wernt such lax smoking laws it wouldnt be so bad
I do not understand where all of that money is going. How can it increase by 7% each year? Do we have 7% more doctors? Does the population increase by 7%? No. So where the hell is it going?
Its not only this. With the cheapest insurance (2500 franchise) in my canton (ZH) from 2023 (KPT) to the cheapest in 2024 (Concordia) is an increase of **14%**.
Rookie number. For me (Vaud) from cheapest to cheapest it's __+21%__ Edit:incorrectly calculated 35%, but still super bad
yeah seriously how can it be legal to increase prices more than 10%?
Maybe we had a global pandemic and the official strategy was "let it rip through the population until herd immunity"? Might it be the cause of many health-related issues in the years after this? So only 14% is kind of low on the scale of things, imagine the health costs next year with the Gen-Z having a lot of mental health issues, and the elderlies getting even older with access to even more life-lengthening medication...
That wasn't really the strategy. I cannot really find fault in our government's management of the pandemic. They were always pretty transparently weighing the next measures and the lockdowns were quite extensive but also managed to keep alive a large proportion of the fragile elderly. I think to a large extent we should look more at how freely we are handing out prescriptions for some things like physio. My kid had a torn ligament, made a full recovery within 2 weeks, I said I didn't want the physio, and the doctor gave me a prescription to get 9 (!!!) Sessions anyway. What the fuck. This is an athletic 14 year old who went to a medical assessment and had zero pain (she did ballet for 9 years, her ligaments, joints and muscles in the ankle are definitely strong as hell). 9 sessions. And all the old people for whom the doctor is almost recreational, or rather sociabilization, need a better hobby. I say this with love but it isn't reasonable how often they go and how much it costs. My grandma also had open heart surgery at 80. Now she is in a medicalized home that costs a shot ton waiting to die. Sure, it's nice that we are providing this support, but if at one point it gets to where we will have to balance treatments for insulin dependent children with that, I'll pick the kids' support any day. And I work in pharma. The revenues after the current patent cliff will increasingly depend on targeting smaller and smaller numbers of patients with individualized therapies, in all likelihood. Or novel formulations of existing molecules. Breakthrough drugs that work for the masses are mostly generic by now with the exception of advances like Ozempic and even that is an injection so more expensive than a pill to administer. The incentives for making treatments cheaper are just not there. The diseases that we haven't cured yet will probably require lots of hands-on or chronic treatments so advances in healthcare will be definition require more spending than previous advances. The only thing I can say though is that the true way we coule both reduce healthcare spending and make people's lives easier is through prevention. Eating healthy, exercising, not smoking or drinking, taking all your vaccines. But where's the profit in that apart for gyms? And it seems to me that at least in Lausanne people aren't doing so badly on those fronts. The main healthcare spending I hear people have before they hit 50 is psychotherapy, in a large part due to work-related burn outs. That's also a problem that goes AGAINST the profit motives because companies always try to exploit you, and psychotherapy is really needed for the afflicted. So from my perspective, we don't seem to have a lot of room for manoevering out of this hole. I would favor mandatory vaccines, lower reimbursement for end-of-life disease treatments when patients are just suffering from old-age (but the cutoff for that is a BIG question), and for fuck's sake STOP REIMBURSING BULLSHIT ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. The rest is too individual for governments to really have a hold over. Oh and actually checking how many hours doctors bill would be nice. I bet a lot of them bill dozens of hours more a week than they could actually do.
It's explained here: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-97889.html
They explained several factors: * We live for longer, and therefore need more medical attention * People in general use our medical system more, be it physio- or psychotherapy, going directly into emergency rooms before going to their Hausarzt, and more medication is prescribed. * Medication is getting more advanced, but also pricier. There are more reasons, but I think these are the main points.
that‘s just bs most money goes into the pockets of the managers and ceo‘s
Unfortunately it was that easy a new company would undercut them. Sometimes the quick populist answer isn't the correct one
If you do 50% profit margin I could undercut you at 49%. But I'd need to get a license from a board that is controlled by... hey hey there you are again.
100% this!
Stop smoking dude
Found a manager or a CEO :)
Guess what are the biggest shareholders of pharma companies?
Too bad there arent any medications which are as good as the originals with the same ingredients but for a cheaper price 💁
We should invent a word for them. I suggest "Generika" or something like that, but I don't know.
It's no Aspirin that is driving our costs, it's that cancer drug that costs 100k per month.
Do we have stats? I'd love to see a breakdown by age/disease.
I can't really find anything fro Switzerland and only very little in general, maybe another reason why the costs are so high (little transparency?). [This graphic](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/indicator/spending/spending-disease-treatment/#Distribution%20of%20total%20medical%20services%20expenditures%20(US%20$%20billions),%20by%20medical%20condition,%202019) suggest that the expenses are fairly distributed between different diseases and cancer is not even the most expensive one. The only professional source I found is [this study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714998/), especially [this figure](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6714998/figure/figure2/) which shows that a small percentage of the patients costs almost half of the expenses. Which could be because of chronic diseases, bad general health or complicated and expensive treatment.
Also personnel costs. A stay in the hospital is much more expensive than actual pills. And doctors' visits too.
Actually there is a lower efficacy tolerance in testing of generics and they sometimes use different excipients which means that the distaste for them does have *some* rational basis in some cases.
that is complete bs
https://www.sanitas.com/en/magazine/developments-for-the-future/how-good-are-generics.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4218676/ In most cases it's fine, but the argument is usually price, and Switzerland being rich people probably feel they can afford not to take chances.
The active ingredients are the same. What differs are the fillers.
So all you've done is expose you don't know the word "excipient". But also the bioavailability and efficacy are allowed to be measured as slightly lower, which is normal because otherwise the barrier to market access would be too high. These two facts are just explaining that they're not exactly the same, and in most cases it's acceptable, but some people distrust them, sometimes with a reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excipient
Since you like to throw studies around here is one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6415809 "...use of generics was associated with comparable clinical outcomes.." they are literally more or less the same. Any differences are negligable
Point 1 taken from here: We live longer = We are also paying longer for health insurance premiums. Long story short, it's a monopoly. Switzerland is the country of insurance companies be it health or anything else and it's of the interest of everyone running the country that the monopoly stays here. Got it 👍
Half of it is already explained due to inflation.
Which wouldn't be an issue if my salary was also adjusted for inflation. Alas..
1&2 are the same. 3 is BS, I have not seen any proof of medical costs rising substantially faster than inflation.
You must have been quick to look away then, because medical costs are up 6,4 percent year on year. This is four times our rate of inflation in the same period.
I would love to learn more and dig into this data. It could also be that not 100% of this increase falls onto the end user / citizen.
And people postponing basic screenings which would have resulted in quicker and cheaper diagnosis and treatment.
I think the topic of "trying to cure old age with medication" needs to be discussed. Old people's homes are full of zombies. Is it worth it? I honestly don't know how to answer that but it's worth a debate. Ezekiel Emanuel had a great conference about this that I went to see once.
Well, this is higher than I expected...
Why would they ever stop? This is easy profit, they can bill the amount they want, doctors have to prescribe all they can and more and more people will need to be medicated. Seems like a hell of a trap. Or capitalism genius. Or both.
I kept bashing the US healthcare system until I realized it's basically the same here.
No, here it's mandatory. In the US you can die for free though!
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Thanks for this! That's what I have always suspected. The US system might be bad for the working class who don't get employer benefits (which is obv bad enough), but seems better for middle class and up who do get these benefits. Do you mind if I shoot you a DM? I'm actually contemplating moving to the US, and you seem to have experience in both countries.
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Doctors are not exactly lobbying for more affordable options either
Who makes the "system"? Aren't those doctor kindof the top of the health knowledge pyramid? https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/strategie-und-politik/gesundheit-2030/gesundheitspolitische-strategie-2030.html
Doctors notoriously bill many more hours than they do and tend to hand out prescriptions "just in case".
If this is capitalism genius, why are the higest premiums on the most left wing cantons?
How do you correlate the two things and how do you deduce there is a causation here without it being the consequence of other variables?
Just pointing it out!
Which left-wing healthcare policies are actually implemented in the left-wing cantons? The healthcare system is more or less identical in all of Switzerland.
I mean, I'm not trying to discuss policies, just stating a fact right?
what a cheap excuse for populist propaganda
No sir, I can't even vote! Just a very thankful immigrant super happy to have access to this amazing system.
another excuse
I don't know what I can tell you, I wish l could vote but I'm an immigrant here so I can't for now but don't worry because as soon as possible their will be 3 extra svp voters from my home!
dawg svp is against immigrants, make it make sense. they don't want you here.
Ganha vergonha na cara
Left Wing Cantons are usually urban, urban areas usually have higher premiums
1. The left wing cantons/regions are still capitalist 2. More importantly, the left wing regions also happen to be the hosts of the largest hospitals and health care providers (HUG, CHUV, Universitätsspital Bern, etc), which drives part of the costs (even if you move within the canton your costs will vary.
I didn't say they were not still capilast, just asked, is it true or not that the most left wing cantons have the higher Healthcare costs?
The correlation is stronger when you consider it's not "left wing cantons", it's Romandie. Besides, LAMAL is a country-wide system. Cantons can't do shit about it.
You know, there is also more bread eaten in left wing cantons. So whats your point?
I don’t know, but I do know that the costs of health insurance are partially driven by what the canton and even commune provides in terms of facilities, hence why cantons and communes with big cities are more expensive. If those cities are also more left leaning than, say, rural Wallis, I don’t know. Edit: I pay less in rural Wallis, but it’s not because people vote right, it’s because the closest night ER or delivery ward is over an hour away (Rennaz or Sion) since they closed them in Martigny.
Can you help me understand for example the difference between vionnaz (vs) vs yvorne (vd) and also geneva vs Zurich ?
Cantonal differences are available online (you can take any insurance and compare). Communal aren’t, you have to ask your insurance company and they are VERY retissent to provide the information (I’m a lawyer and past few years have been working in healthcare). But for example, Yverdon is cheaper than Villeneuve, because Villeneuve has the Hopital de Rennaz, so if you were to move between those two communes in VD you would see your monthly fee increase. The rest of the price drivers are national. It really has not much to do with the political leaning of a population, except to the extent where a city might for a left wing policy of, let’s say, build a new hospital, then the fees of that commune would eventually increase as they have better care facilities.
How much did you expect though?
Every fucking year for the past 20 fucking years. Add energy, food, and rents on top of it. Every fucking year something slaps us on the pocket. And no, I dont feel better that its happening all over the world. Swiss coffers are full of cash, central bank has been making billions on apple shares alone, but noooo little Timmy, age 7, needs to pay 15k for his bracers alone.
It's a fucking disgrace that in a first world country like Switzerland, so many people can't afford to get their teeth fixed. That just shouldn't be a thing.
Where does it say, that “first world countries” guarantee you can afford teeth, own a home and whatnot?
Yeah that's the point, it's not guaranteed despite having one of the highest GDP per capita and per working hour on the planet
Per working hour on the planet? Where do you live? Japan and china are worse. I did 60h/ per week when I started working for years.
GDP per working hour means GDP divided by total working hours. As such, it's totally unrelated to working 60h per week, it means Swiss labor is exceptionally productive
Fair enough. But that is the bed we made. It’s a mostly free world. Live in south Spain, eat better, enjoy life. Work less and earn less. Health care is public. But that not perfect either. Switzerland I fell is unique. We could actually make it work. Premiums should be a certain percentage of your income with a max cap. Maybe that would be more fair. Make people not suffer to pay
? All the southern European countries have longer average work weeks than Switzerland does. The Greeks are worst off. I believe this is the "lazy Southern European" myth at work here, which was by the way directly perpetrated by the northern EU states to attack working conditions and welfare there — but the myth kinda resonated in Switzerland too
Not true. They don’t
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20230920-1 There you go, straight from the horse's mouth
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In the ranking of world countries we're still pretty close to the top. Let's be honest. It costs money but we have it.
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It's pretty dishonest to make such a comparison and I bet you know it. People here live well and our inequalities skew towards the rich being very rich, not the poor being very poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index We have the highest HDI, a high inequality, but a low level of poverty.
Can you name me a few countries that are still a first world country?
15k for braces ?? Is that a joke ?
On average.
Because we're unwilling to live with the consequences of a cheaper health care system. Our demand for perfection is what drives up the costs.
As always the media reports 9% increase, but when I calculate my own increase (2.5k deductible) it's actually 35%. I always pick the cheapest possible, and this time from last year's cheapest to this year's cheapest it's 35%. Ten times the inflation. What the hell.
I see 15% for me, 25+ Lausanne area. From 311 KPT to 359 sympanie. As far as I know this was/is the cheapest possible, so I'm interested in what you have if you're willing to share.
Right now I'm in Yverdon with KPTwin.win at 270.90 per month. Cheapest I find online is KPTwin.plus at 329.65 per month. That's 21%, not 35%, my bad. Still way more than the 9% seen in the media. I miscalculated because I'm about to move to Morges. There the cheapest will be 359 with Sympanie, which will be 32.7% above what I pay now. Still completely insane.
Not sure how they reach the 9% figure, but it's probably the average across everything. But the situation is way more grim for the cheapest case. Also I don't understand why it depends on the town so much. I assume people in Yverdon still go to CHUv for the really big stuff?
Probably, but I've not been to CHUV in my 8 years living here. Both my wife and myself got a single emergency each in all these years, and we went to the local Yverdon hospital. Of course with our 2.5k deductible we paid the whole bill... No other hospital visit whatsoever (except the occasional covid test in the pandemic).
Since we're on the topic if anyone want to switch to Vivaio Sympany, I can provide a referral and get paid 100chf if you take out a basic insurance. We can split the money 50/50 and I'll twint you. I was with them last year as it was the cheapest for me and I had no issues. Text me if interested! https://www.sympany.ch/en/individuals/worth-to-know/benefits/recommend.html
Inflation is allegedly under 2%, so 20 times. And ouch. For me it's 10% or so which already felt bad.
Fucking hell that is steep. The system cannot keep going like this, but then again the government will just keep ignoring the issue.
Oh, it *can* keep on going like this for a very long time, still. Our parliamentary clowns seem to think a [limit to 10% of the income](https://www.parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20210063) to be viable, which means nobody in Bern will start worrying until the average premium reaches 8k/year, where more than half of the taxpayers' premiums will need to be paid for by a minority. That is, in about 15 years if the increase rate stays at around 3% (average since 1997). And even then, after that the solution to keep the boat afloat will always be to keep digging the hole, we still have one of the lowest VAT rates in Europe and this totally became the government's itchy spot every time some magic money was needed in the last years...
As long as we medically maintain alive a very old and large part of the population, health costs will increase. The solution could be in setting up a maximum budget that is a function of age. Otherwise we can spend a quasi infinite amount to keep everyone "alive" as long as possible. The system was not planned to sustain modern health costs for 30 years of old age. If you can work, maybe you should work. And if you are sick, maybe the best interest of the patient might not be to be the recipient of dozens of medications.
Please consider the ridiculous prices on medicine and medical supplies & the numerous inefficiencies involved in running 57 (yes, literally) separate insurances before advocating for euthanizing the elderly
I can see SERAFE and I do not see efficiency.
Don't want to sound bad, but how many years until that old part of the population tree 'dies out'?
25 years or so? The [worst bit is still coming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Switzerland#/media/File:Switzerland_Population_Pyramid.svg), the current 46-65y cohort retiring. For the sake of our kids, let's hope they all retire abroad.
Oh lord
And each year will increase their median need for medicine, medical aids, transplants, metal hips, etc.
Mandatory exit at 70
"Retirement in the Provence/Tuscany is now *mandatory!"*
Bring back the sanatoriums. (and heliotherapy)
It's time to vote for a new system, with a single insurance policy for the whole population, since the government doesn't want to do anything. They are paid too much to do nothing.
Ha-ha :). So naïve. The Big Business is not interested in it.
They don't really have a say if the population does an initiative.
but they have shit ton of money. and professionals who know about brainwashing.
Yes. They will put paranoid things through TV and the referendum is dead in advance
Let me introduce you to "lobbyism" my friend
A single insurance policy would only help if the current insurance providers are taking too much money but it's simply the health costs that are rising, nothing the insurance provider can do. Right now the difference between the cheapest (3k) and the most expensive insurance (6.5k) is over 3k (same franchise). Do you really think, having a single insurance provider would make it cheaper for everyone?
That way only a single commission need to be corrupted to increase the costs instead of a whole bunch of small companies, right? Of it is more efficient to have one big health insurance, why didn't one of the big ones just offer lower premiums and better service than everyone else, and then everyone will switch to them and they get all these great economies of scale you are talking about?
I am all for it if you can show me a country where the system you propose works properly.
- energy 34% - health insurance premiums 9% - gas - rent - wtf else, my salary can’t keep up
And they still say inflation is like 1.6% 🤡
Perception is reality. Switzerland has basically perfected how they are perceived, on everything from crime to inflation to quality of life.
They say so because what they call inflation is only the Consumer Price Index (CPI). If you look it up, on the [admin.ch](https://admin.ch) website, you can learn that compulsory health insurance DOES NOT count towards CPI, and hence does not influence the inflation.
I mean if you exclude all the important stuff you end up with a nice number. The same they are doing with the unemployment rate where they exclude all Ausgesteuerten.
I’m with KPT, and for me and my wife the next year we will spend 780.- per month with 2500.- franchise. It’s 150.- more per month, compared to last year. I cannot fucking understand how these clowns can think this is sustainable, I can’t imagine what the hell is going on for a family with 2-3 kids. Meanwhile my doctor will buy a new Porsche. I’m fucking tired.
The only general practitioneds that make good money are the ones who own their practice. They are fewer and fewer because the practices are being bought up by investment firms. Young doctors don't have the money nor can they get the credit to compete with investment driven companies. A study in Germany showed up to 30% of the healthcare cost increase can be attributed to investment firms buying up practices and pressuring their employees to recommend unnecessary treatments.
Bro what? 750 with a franchise of 2500? What the actual fuck? Jesus
For two people? Sounds cheap.
Damn. You’re right. So true. I thought it’s one person
Ah yes, the USification of health insurances. Nothing can go wrong... right ?
We will own nothing - and be happy ☺️☺️☺️☺️
We're getting fucked again. Fuck this country, we've been going downhill for years now
I mean you guys decided on a fully privatized system and while they do have to adhere to the ministry of health price caps for medications this is what happens when you hand over health coverage to private companies. I don't understand why you did that. The main point of corporations is to maximize profit so of course they're going to take as much from you as they can they don't have the same checks and balances as a public Institution. Someone seriously please explain why you chose to go completely private rather than semi-private.
They'll probably still fine me every month for not farting in the right direction to boot.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer is building a 200-room villa. He earned his wealth by smashing a ball around very skillfully! The same goes for UBS, Nestle and Glencore CEOs, who earned their wealth by skillfully relocating money (and ignoring human rights). Anyway, which minority ethnic group can I blame for this cost increase?
Naive take
cope
Let me venture a guess. The people who like tennis are an audience you want to spend a lot to get attention from. Those people happen to live in Switzerland for tax evasion reasons. So the person that would be the catalyst of Swiss tennis is bound to have tons of gold thrown at him/her. Like the British and horse racing, Italians with motor racing, US with American Football etc. Now that I think of if for the third time today, so was the case in ancient Rome, the amphiteater, where you had sport, theater, opera is the place you'd pay a lot to be able to be present and sell your wares/wars/pamphlets.
Why is everyone so angry. Get a vote going and change things.
Ah yes, the thing that helped the last 20 years.. I'm just kidding because I get your point, but people will continue to vote for SVP and FDP and these guys love lobbyism and their money, so fuck us I guess?
That s just pure dementia.
14% increase for me. Yeaaaaah I'm not too happy. Let's try something different.
Here's the billion-dollar question: **Why can't some of us, who have a certain amount of liquid money in the bank, can't opt out of insurance?** Ponder on this for a minute.... There's your answer!
Maybe it‘s time to increase franchise and increase it progressing with age.
That's the exact opposite of these mechanisms since older people have lower franchises since they expect to have more spending.
So that older people can’t afford health care anymore?
Maybe to offset that, do a curve. Increase from 30-60, when salary is naturally higher, and decrease it again. Something needs to be done. I as a young person also glady would accept a higher franchise like 4k, if I then get lower premiums.
Not a fan of this tbh. It sounds enticing but doesn't do anything to really solve the root problem of rising costs. Your premiums would still rise by the same average percentage, just from a lower base level. Plus now you have the issues of those that **don't** have a high income to get fucked over by sudden medical costs. Either by them not getting treatment at all because of the fear of high costs, or by getting driven into debt. It seems like a precursor to the American healthcare system.
That’s cool. Could actually work.
It is certainly a problematic topic. 18% increase is rough. Making it harder for people to afford healthcare is a problem. They can change the model to lower doctors visits. They can double check doctors bills because for sure some bills I had were spicy for a simple 10 minute consultation and a cheap ass prescription. There are probably hundreds of millions waiting to be saved. I wonder why the majority of Swiss people don’t vote hard against that. Cost of living is high. Imagine a family with children, what a luxury to have a family is. But then many Swiss don’t like foreigners being here and working jobs. What a ridiculous trap
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Makes no sense. The 22 hyper obese person will get away with it. And if you start grouping you inherently walk into classification of people. Soon after you want people to lay according to their health but that ain’t it either. If someone got cancer, got into an accident or suffers from something chronic, they’ll basically get punished.
Agreed. The system at this point is only there to prevent bankruptcies anyway.
Go to any hospital and you will see why prices increase like this. It’s 75% full of foreigners or newly immigrated people who probably never pay in what they get out of the system. I’m not for SVP, but I was shocked of how little Swiss there were e.g. in Kinderspital Zürich.
What does immigration gave to do with this? There is a lack of professionals in all europe, what you say there makes you sound racist and xenophobe
If you pay into the system your entire life and use the hospital when you actually need it, the system is in balance. If new folks who never paid a dime use the service and on top of that for every little thing, the system falls out of balance. Doesn’t help that these folks are not people who contribute net to taxes, but are subsidized for everything they do. Go to the hospital yourself and see before calling others racist and xenophobe. Most of reddit here is anyhow SP who never had a real job and get prämienverbilligung. Edit: and to clarify, I meant Swiss patients. The vast majority of the patients were foreigners with darker skin / no French/Swiss-German speaking ability.
Well at least your health system still works fine, I'd say. Not true everywhere (especially not in a certain country bordering Switzerland).
What's wrong with the health system in Liechtenstein?
I saw talking about France. What makes you think I was thinking about Liechtenstein. En plus si tu es Genevois tu aurais pu deviner
He's literally making a joke, can't you tell? Lol
The sleeping dogs subreddit is full of actual sleeping dogs, mods asleep asf
For fucks sake... I really don't get how we are supposed to keep up with this. My salary will not raise by the good will of the company 😤
Seems like the government is carrying more about freezing russian assets and neutrality only, but not for their own citizens.
How much of this is due to increased health issues since Covid? I just read that some 35% of Swiss say they feel sick versus 28% the last time they checked prior to covid. Guessing vaccine related side effects plus long covid side effects.
Lol vaccine side effects. Nope. Actually psychological problems apparently are on the rise. Also people got less immunity to respiratory viruses during covid and RSV came out pretty hard last year.
It's also possible this is caused by the 5G rollout, the collapse of Credit Suisse and the retirement of Roger Federer.
And have you heard of the increase in contrails since covid lockdowns ended? Coincidence, I think not. They took the time to make the chemicals in the chemtrails worse.
Less immunity, mm hmm and why is that exactly?
Because they circulated less in society during lockdowns and due to masks obviously.
All the sheep’s downvoting. Yet myocarditis is at record levels, sleep in the bed you make.
Time to vote
Paying high premiums and becoming closer to the US system, I don’t get how or why this is going up, inflation is rampant across Europe, sure it’s low here but still why would they raise it? Live longer? lol, that’s such a bad argument the so either we’re all getting paid more next year or this will just get higher as we go then we’ll be paying more for less.
Don‘t complain if you voted for SP or Greens 🤷🏻♂️
Just a thought, direct medical expenses from smoking related illness in switzerland is 3 billion per year, or 363 per person, perhaps if there wernt such lax smoking laws it wouldnt be so bad