Swiss healthcare costs have already risen by 7.5% this year

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Santésuisse – the umbrella group for Swiss health insurers – has warned that health care costs have already risen by 7.5% per capita in the first two months of 2023. 

According to Santésuisse, rising drug costs and the large number of drugs prescribed are the main reasons for the rise in costs. 

“The result will be a further increase in premiums,” says Verena Nold, director of the health insurers’ association in an interview with SonntagsBlick.

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Nold is calling for treatments that have been shown to be of no benefit to be removed from the catalogue of services.

“If we want our system to be financeable in the long term, we must become more efficient. To achieve this, the cantons should apply strict criteria to hospitals and no longer allocate all the service mandates to every small hospital,” she said.

Health insurance premiums have jumped by an average of 6.6% between 2022 and 2023, in connection with the pandemic and catch-up effects. According to the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), the average premium for adults rose to CHF397.20 per month. The premium for young adults rose by 6.3% to CHF 279.90 per month while those for children rose by 5.5% to an average of CHF 105.

These rises are not sufficient to meet growing cost of healthcare, according to Nold.

“At some point, this will catch up with us. We should have already raised premiums by 10% by 2023,” she said.