Senate to vote on reimbursement of medications bought abroad
Swiss health insurance companies should have to reimburse certain medicines purchased by insured persons abroad. The House of Representatives is calling for the law to be amended accordingly. Only medicines that are authorised in Switzerland and prescribed by a doctor practising in Switzerland are to be reimbursed.
The health insurance funds should also pay for medicines or medical devices if they are cheaper abroad than in Switzerland. These are the two demands of a motion by Marcel Dobler of the Liberals, which the House of Representatives clearly approved on Thursday by 134 votes to 24 with 22 abstentions.
The motion still must go through the Senate. Importantly, Dobler’s motion does not include shipping of medications.
Dobler argued that health insurance premiums were rising year after year. All possible measures should be taken to curb further cost increases in the healthcare system, with drug prices being a major driver of these costs.
The Federal Council requested that the motion be accepted. It had already written in November in its response to the motion that it planned to amend the legislation in the coming year in line with the motion.
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The motion was opposed in the House of Representatives by Thomas de Courten of the Swiss People’s Party, who spoke of “encouragement of shopping tourism”. The current principle of territoriality for health insurance benefits strengthens patient safety, he implied, and implementing the motion would weaken Switzerland economically.
Currently, the costs of medicines purchased abroad are only reimbursed if the insured person needs them during a temporary stay abroad due to an illness that occurred there.
The price level of medicines in other European countries is lower than in Switzerland. The difference is particularly striking for generics: they are around half the price abroad.
Adapted from German by DeepL/kc/amva
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