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What’s going on? A large Swiss health insurer pays for something he is not obligated to do. Without telephone complaints, without need for months of correspondence and without customer having to threaten to turn on cashier’s downfall.
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Last week, health insurance company Concordia announced that it voluntarily paid 2,200 to its insured families over two million Swiss francs. In media release, re was talk of help, of those affected, of a predicament.
The canton of Lucerne was responsible for this. He had done what he has been doing for years: he saved. 2012, Liberal, non-party finance director Marcel Schwerzmann halved cantonal corporate taxes, but long-term hoped for more revenue remained unprecedented. This is why students of Lucerne have to spend a week longer on holidays, teachers work one hour more weekly, and Museum of Transport, Kunstmuseum or Lucerne Festival have to dispense with several subsidy millions annually.
But austerity measures were of little use, numbers remained red. For this reason, Schwerzmann, business administration and tax administrator, graduated from HSG, looked for furr savings opportunities. He found: cantonal premium reductions.
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Every resident in Switzerland spends an average of 783 francs per month for his health. For health insurance premiums and that part of treatment costs that he has to pay through franchise and cost share.
This article comes from time No. 41/2017. Here you can read entire output.
Since 1996 compulsory health insurance has been introduced, premiums have risen five times as fast as wages – and have almost tripled. Also 2018 continue to rise to an average of 4.5 percent, as Federal Council announced last week.
In order to ensure that health insurance bill does not become a risk of poverty, Parliament, with KVG, introduced an individual premium reduction for “persons in modest economic circumstances”. Wher and how it works, Federal Office of Public health checks every few years. The most recent numbers are from 2014, and y show that system is getting worse. Although it costs state four billion francs a year, it seems that even this huge sum is no longer enough – more and more insured must pay all premiums.
Up to 2010, government spending on premium reductions increased more than premiums mselves. If you don’t have a lot of money to live with, you’ve been relieved. But n whole thing turned: premiums increased by twelve, but state contribution per recipient was only six percent, and percentage of insured who received support even declined.
Those who receive a high discount on ir Prämienrechung in Switzerland also determine cantons. And while federal government adapted its contributions to rising health costs, because since 2008 a law obliges it, cantons spend less and fewer. Not only Lucerne, but also Bernese or Basel bidders have noticed: Here you can save a few millions. Efficient and easy. The Health Insurance Law (KVG) only means that cantons grant premium reductions to insured in “modest economic conditions”. What this means in concrete terms is unclear. There is no fixed contribution.
The Lucerne savings policy will allow health insurance companies to become benefactors
Lucerne knew how to use it. The canton was without a budget for months because Parliament had quarreled and population declined a tax hike in spring.
So government and cantonal councils had to think again about where y could still save. They opted for children and adolescents who are trained and whose parents earn a total of between 54,000 and 75,000 francs a year. So lower middle-level, it cut premium discount.
