The Swiss Health Care System

The Swiss health care system is a step in the right direction if some politicians truly wanted to repair health insurance coverage. It’s certainly better than anything the Obama Administration and Congress have proposed.

It’s more efficient and will eventually cost less than anything being considered.

The plan is somewhat like that that advocated during the 2008 campaign by Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and being proposed now by Senators. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Under the Swiss plan, everyone is covered by private insurance. There is no government-managed or employer-provided coverage. The poor are helped to buy any insurance they cannot afford.

Employees under a U.S. comparable plan could receive in cash, tax free, what their employers currently spend on premiums, provided they used the money for insurance on health care. Poor people, including past Medicaid recipients, would get government money to buy insurance.There would be no discrimination against anyone on account of illness.

The plan would be expensive at first, but unlike any public plan which socializes medicine. True interstate competition among insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors, would bring costs down over time.

Patients could really choose the best and lowest cost providers on the basis of published outcomes data. Insurance companies and providers would bid for clients and customers as to needs and cost.

The government's role would merely be to oversee transparency, The government would create an information system, with regard to insurance companies and providers

This is the one plan that gives consumers a role in controlling health care costs, by running their own plan