Health insurance Sanitas CEO calls for more personal responsibility in the healthcare system

Sanitas CEO Andreas Schönenberger wants to place greater emphasis on the personal responsibility of insured persons. Healthcare costs could be reduced if Switzerland followed the Singapore model, as he said in an interview with "Tamedia".

There, each person saves for medical expenses themselves, with the insurance company only stepping in for expensive procedures. According to Schönenberger, this would reduce costs and create more transparency. For socially disadvantaged population groups, Schönenberger proposed a state cushion in the form of a sovereign wealth fund, as is the case in Singapore.

He also welcomed the idea of rewarding people who maintain a healthy lifestyle with discounts on supplementary insurance. This is currently not permitted in basic insurance. However, Schönenberger emphasized that it was worth taking a holistic approach to the issue: "People who exercise a lot and have a healthy weight should receive money back," he told Tamedia.

However, the Sanitas boss rejected the idea of a single health insurance fund. Today, he said, health insurance companies have an incentive to reduce costs and remain innovative thanks to competition. A monopoly would do away with both.

Pierre-Yves Maillard wants initiative for a single health insurance fund

In Lausanne on Thursday, Pierre-Yves Maillard, member of the Vaudois Council of States and trade union leader, confirmed his intention to launch a new popular initiative for the introduction of a single public health insurance fund. Speaking at the Forum of 100, he said he hoped to be able to present a text next fall.

Referring to the failures of the single health insurance fund before the people in 2007 and 2014, the Vaud native said that the new initiative must be more comprehensible so that "people clearly understand the implications for them", as was the case with the winning vote on the 13th AHV pension.

The contours of this new initiative are "currently being discussed", continued the member of the Council of States and President of the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions (SGB). However, he had already indicated that, in his opinion, this public fund should not be national, but should be "based on cantonal systems".

SDA