Health Care in Switzerland

In Switzerland, compulsory health insurance covers the costs of medical treatment and hospitalization of the insured. The Swiss healthcare system is a combination of public, subsidized private and totally private healthcare providers, where the insured person has full freedom of choice among the providers in his region. Insurance companies independently set their price points for different age groups, but are forbidden from setting prices based on health risk. In 2000, Switzerland topped all European countries’ health care expenditure when calculated as per capita expenditure in US dollar purchasing parity terms.
The Swiss health care system is interesting as it was the last for-profit system in Europe. In the 1990s, after the private carriers began to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions—and when the uninsured population of Switzerland reached 5%--the Swiss held a referendum (1995) and adopted their present system.