Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

The Swiss spend about as much as the USA does on health care (as a percent of GDP) and have a similar mandated health insurance system, the main difference being that employers aren't allowed to provide health insurance as a benefit do there are no group policies (everyone is in the individual policy market).

View on HN

The Swiss government spends about the same per head as the US government (and partly that's a currency problem).

However, US private spending is much higher, so the total cost of healthcare is higher.

The OECD numbers for 2013 put US per capita spending at $9,086 compared with Swiss spending of $6,325. The OECD median is $3,661.

It would be better to compare the USA with Canada, which has a universal healthcare system at a lower cost to the state ($3,974 vs $4,197).

I stand corrected, thanks! I actually liked the Swiss system when I was a part of it, even though I was a bit mad for having to pay for health insurance out of pocket at the beginning.

Switzerland also controls the max price of drugs as part of their gov't approval process.

"Drugs must be effective, cost-effective and appropriate to be listed in the positive drug list (SL/Spezialitätenliste). The federal government sets the maximal allowable public price for drugs in the SL."

https://www.ispor.org/HTARoadMaps/SwitzerlandPH.asp

It is also the most expensive of the european OECD nations...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com