Radical Party calls for curb on health care costs

The conservative Radical Party, one of the four parties represented in the Swiss government, on Friday called for more competition in the health care sector in order to curb spiralling costs.

The conservative Radical Party, one of the four parties represented in the Swiss government, on Friday called for more competition in the health care sector in order to curb spiralling costs.

The party made the call as it presented its platform on health care policies ahead of parliamentary elections in October.

Spiralling health care costs witnessed in Switzerland in the past few years have led to a heated debate over how best to reduce costs without compromising quality service that is affordable for everybody.

The right-of-centre party said the country’s mandatory health care insurance plan should only pay for basic health care costs. Otherwise, financial pressure would further increase and the plan would become essentially unaffordable for lower income groups.

Too many people had got used to the idea that health care insurance programmes would simply cover everything, including private rooms and other luxury care provisions, the party said.

“What should have been insurance for basic health care has become insurance for luxury services,” said a senior party representative at a news conference in the capital Berne.

The Radical Party said it supported the per capita price tag for health insurance and favoured financial help for the needy.

But the party firmly opposed the idea of linking health care contributions to people’s salaries or introducing further salary deductions to finance health care.

“Mandatory health care payments must not become a new kind of income tax,” the party said in a statement.

The party said health care services must be deregulated to boost competition and keep costs down. Subsidies for public hospitals – as opposed to private ones — should also be phased out, the Radical Party said.

The new compulsory health insurance programme was introduced in January 1996. It was meant to help cap costs for basic health care and make medical insurance affordable for everybody.

The Social Democrats immediately rejected the Radical Party’s proposals, saying the party wanted to introduce the kind of health care system seen in the United States, where a high percentage of people could not afford insurance.


From staff and wire reports.