It has already become rumored that health insurance premiums will rise again next year. The various funds will again step up their advertising for new members in the fall. The demeanor of health insurance officials is occasionally very arrogant. These are arguments that tempt many fellow citizens, but also many colleagues, to teach the insurers a lesson. Rational reasons are listed, but in fact it is the emotional gut and anger arguments that will decide the vote on the initiative to introduce the single health insurance fund. The rational questions are suppressed and covered up emotionally.
How, for example, are Switzerland’s nearly eight million inhabitants to be administered? Will a new, low-cost health insurance fund be founded in Bern or should the new fund be affiliated with the IV or SUVA? Where to get the employees? Might it be necessary to merge the big insurers? Should the federal government buy out health insurers? After all, the experience of large mergers shows that different business cultures cannot be brought together without problems. And why exactly are costs supposed to go down, not up, on this mammoth project? Why should the people of eastern Switzerland subsidize the horrendous health care costs on the other side of the Röstigraben?
A few weeks ago, we witnessed the vote on the immigration initiative. This vote is another example of how strong feelings lead to decision. The commuters are fed up with the traffic chaos in the cities and therefore vote yes, the others feel like cosmopolitan city dwellers, voted no and are now ashamed of Switzerland. Those who rail against the large bureaucracy in the state want quotas to be administered, but preferably without administrative staff. Housing rents are to be lowered with the initiative and the concreting of the landscape is to be stopped. One could still list many arguments for and against. But the fact that a terse yes or no reveals the complexity of the problem is what we are experiencing today. Simple recipes for solving all problems are useless and create multiples of new problems. Only those with a light-hearted tube view can seriously believe that a simple solution is the be-all and end-all!
Dear colleagues, even if you are angry about the behavior of health insurance fund officials and about the allegedly horrendous salaries of health insurance fund bosses, you should not let your emotions override your professional and holistic thinking and actions! The dream of a low-cost, one-size-fits-all health insurance system will become a nightmare already in the week following the glorious victory! You disagree?
Unfortunately, emotions will probably decide this vote as well and we will have to painfully learn that a dream becomes a nightmare!
Cordially, your
Josef Widler, MD
HAUSARZT PRAXIS 2014; 9(3): 1
