The Swiss Health Care System

Paper Summary:

This paper provides a description of the Swiss health care system and discusses the positive and negative aspects of that system. The paper discusses the impact of the high costs of the system in Switzerland and examines the concerns about equality of access and whether quality of care is a privilege for certain classes. The paper briefly considers whether the Swiss system would be effective in Canada.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Swiss Health Care System
Positive Aspects of the Swiss System
Negative Aspects of the System
Conclusions

From the Paper:

"Fees in Switzerland are not uniform. The amount paid by an insurance company depends on the specific services provided and, more importantly, vary from one canton to another. The fee schedules for each canton are approved by the cantonal government after they have been negotiated between the providers and the insurance companies. The Swiss are involved in risky venture since in 2003 they voted against a proposal to link health insurance premiums to income. The plan would have resulted in significant increases in premiums for the wealthy and would have aligned the Swiss system with the remainder of Europe (Mbitha-Schmid, 2003). To offset the impressive hospital infrastructure in Switzerland, the drawback is that lengths of hospital stay are comparatively long. Directly related to this, the amounts of health care expenditure which are spent on hospital care are the highest of any country in Europe (Mbitha-Schmid, 2003)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Dorozynski, A. (1995). Swiss opt for compulsory health insurance. British Medical Journal, 310 (6971), 11.
• Dyer, O. (2003). Tories propose a "patient's passport" for use in NHS or private sector. British Medical Journal, 326 (7402), 1283.
• Mbitha-Schmid, E. (2003). Health care system: Switzerland. Industry Canada. Accessed October 27, 2006. http://www.strategis.gc.ca
• Rowena, J. & Goddard, M. (2002). Trade-offs in social health insurance systems. International Journal of Social Economics, 29 (11-12), 861-876
• Schwappach, D. (2003). Emerge: Benchmarking of clinical performance and patient's experiences with emergency care in Switzerland. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 15 (6), 473-485.

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