President Bush is pushing for health care reform based on individual choice. The system in Switzerland offers some of those choices, and some health economists say their system is better.
Under the Swiss system, every resident is required to buy health insurance. If they don’t, they pay stiff penalties. Companies have no role. Health care plans are chosen at the kitchen table, not through employee benefit departments.
The Swiss approach insures everyone while eliminating the headaches and costs of health care for companies sensitive to global competition, say observers:
Devon Herrick, a health economist with the National Centre for Policy Analysis in the US, says U.S. employers got into the business of paying health insurance premiums when they couldn’t compete for workers by offering higher wages.
“The only reason our current system exists the way it does is because of the tax laws in the 1940s. Price controls prohibited wage hikes, but you could attract employees with health insurance,” he says. And, unlike payroll, health care benefits are not taxed.
“In the end, employees pay their own health care costs,” says Herrick. “A lot of employees don’t understand that’s really not a free benefit. It’s part of their compensation.”
Source: Jim Landers, A healthier way? In Switzerland, everyone is insured, and businesses don’t pay, Dallas Morning News, February 7, 2006.
For text (subscription required): http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-swisshealth_07bus.ART0.State.Edition2.21730ee.html
For more on Health: http://www.ncpa.org/iss/hea/
FMF Policy Bulletin/ 14 February 2006
