A majority of Swiss would support the creation of a single health insurer, rather than the multiple options currently available, a survey in the Le Temps newspaper said on Wednesday.
The survey comes a week after the announcement of an average increase of 8.7% in health insurance premiums for 2024.
According to the online poll by the Ipsos Switzerland institute between September 27 and 29, 61.2% of the 800 respondents said they were in favour of a single health insurer. Some 21.1% were opposed and 17.7% had no opinion. The proportion of “yes” votes reached 68.1% in French-speaking Switzerland and 58.1% in the German-speaking part of the country.
A majority of 58% also approved the idea of adjusting premiums according to income levels. Here too, favourable opinions were found across the country: 67.6% in French-speaking Switzerland and 53.8% in German-speaking parts. Just over a quarter of Swiss were against such an adjustment of premiums based on income and 16.5% had no opinion.
While respondents supported changes in the financing of compulsory health insurance, they rejected the idea of limit benefits in exchange for paying a lower premium. This proposal only received 37.8% support, compared to 42.9% who opposed it. Rejection was more marked in French-speaking Switzerland (56.4%) than in German-speaking Switzerland (37.1%), where the idea appealed to 42.7%.
The Swiss have already twice refused the creation of a single national health insurer in popular votes.
As for tackling costs, the left-wing Social Democrats have launched an initiative demanding that no insured person should pay more than 10% of their income on health insurance premiums. The text demands that federal and cantonal authorities contribute more to reducing premiums.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Popular Stories
More
Life & Aging
Switzerland no longer wants to foot the bill for ‘suicide tourism’
As a Swiss Abroad, how do you feel about the emergence of more conservative family policies in some US states?
In recent years several US states have adopted more conservative policies on family issues, abortion and education. As a Swiss citizen living there, how do you view this development?
Switzerland to collect data from non-Schengen visitors
This content was published on
The data of travellers from non-Schengen countries will be automatically recorded at the borders of member countries, also Switzerland.
Swiss air traffic controller in red after year of breakdowns
This content was published on
Swiss air traffic controller Skyguide ended 2024, a year marked by repeated breakdowns, with a loss of almost CHF19 million.
Ex-FIFA boss Blatter declares innocence in appeal trial
This content was published on
Former FIFA boss Joseph 'Sepp' Blatter has opened his defence at a Swiss appeal trial which is hearing allegations of fraud.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.