It indeed makes it more attractive even for low to middle-income people where the tax advantage is not yet compensating the higher rents.
Or then move to Appenzell.
Only in Switzerland , I hardly see generics. I understand for biotech stuff market is narrow but for normal stuff, there should be push for generics.
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I have to carry tons of my medication to Spain, where you would pay a lot less for the same. But the insurance told me I cannot buy in Spain, for them to pay they prefer the triple to quadruple price. Now for me this is annoying, but I prefer to carry a few bags of medication to paying it from my pocket.
Switzerland is the most expensive place in the universe and often you just pay more because it is Switzerland, no other reason. And of course the stupidity of bureaucracy that not even let a win-win situation go through like me buying medication out of Switzerland.
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You can find a comparison of cover for medicine by supplemental health insurance offer here.
Bear in mind though, that with voluntary insurance they can reject customers with poor health or exclude pre-existing conditions.
7.3% increase for me, nice. Health insurance costs increasing at a higher rate than stock market returns lol.
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It is theoretically possible to create a tradable security/structured product whose payouts are linked to the development of health insurance premiums in Switzerland (the health insurance premium index (KVPI) could serve as a reference index).
Someone on board to buy radicant AG (a banking licence should help)? Term sheet is ready, see below.
Inb4 we should create a x3 leveraged product on KVPI.
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This is exactly what I was looking. Thank you for this comprehensive article with the limits on each complementary insurance .
I am a bit shocked by the amount covered by Group Mutuel versus KPT and Sanitas. It can go up to 50k coverage by year which is better than Assura with 50k for your whole lifeâŠ
I donât know how many generics are actually approved (maybe the approval process is not always worthwhile for pharmas, I donât know), but politicians are already pushing for generics.
Since 2024, you have to take generics if available, otherwise you pay 40% more:
Anyone who wants an original brand medication today in Switzerland, even though a generic version is available, pays 40% more from their own pocket. The aim of this measure is to strengthen personal responsibility in order to curb rising healthcare costs.
(..)
The current and concrete Helsana figures show that by July 2024, 25% of chronically ill people had already switched to a generic drug. In the previous year, the figure was only 12%.
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I switched from Assura to Helsana ~3 years ago and will never return to Assura.
- Helsana pays for you directly to the doctor/hospital/pharmacy, and then charges you with an easy understandable bill.
- If you need help, you actually reach a real person in an acceptable time frame.
- I prefer their app and online UI
Since more than 20 years I never had more than the Grundversicherung, everything above is a waste of money, my opinion. But I do have an additional travel insurance.
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I do understand because I have experienced previous Assura, but with their new branding came along a new app that actually works great (take a picture and thatâs it) that I hardly use anyway because they also pay directly to the doctor. The only pain is that with the plan I have I can only go to SunStore and there I definitely have to pay myself and then send a picture of the ticket. But nothing like blue Assura. Red Assura works fine for me.
Yeah, somewhere along the way Assura changed how they handle the bills. However, that wasnât such a big deal for me. I never really crossed the 2500 barrier, so I never cared to collect my bills. Only this year I lowered my deductible to 300, because I was feeling something is off about my health: Iâm often tired, I have some mucus dripping in my throat, Iâm sensitive to cold. But after visiting my Hausarzt and 3 HNOs, they all couldnât help me, and were not even willing to guide me to find out whatâs wrong. They all treated me like Iâm imagining things. Just do some bullshit checkup in 10 min and pocket 250 CHF. I am really disappointed with how Swiss healthcare system works when youâre trying to diagnose whatâs wrongâŠ
Anyway, rant over. What I really worry about with Assura is if I got truly sick and needed some very costly treatments, that they would be hard to cooperate. I suspect thatâs where their bad reputation comes from?
Btw Helsana accpected me, now I just need to cancel all my Assura stuff: grund & supplementary. Is there a proper way to do this? Or do I just call them. For the supplementary I only have time until the end of September to cancel.
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I have never worked on Swiss drug pricing but had a quick look out of interest. While the FOPH appears to be much more generous than many other European countriesâ payers in practice, this statement doesnât look correct.
In Germany itâs mandatory to use generics unless the physician makes a documented case, and accepted by the Statutory Health Insurance fund (the GKV-SV) of the patient, otherwise they need to cover the difference from their own budgets. Making the case is such hassle that in practice they donât do it. In any case most countries (e.g., Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Canada, China) have very fierce drug pricing negotiation systems in place, Switzerlandâs pricing structure appears quite soft at face value, and mandated coverage is very generous.
Physiotherapy, mental health, accident insurance if youâre out of a job are the first that come to mind.
A colleague of mine experience severe health issue at 50y.o. and had drug prescribed not listed in the SwissMedic list. It cost a lot.
Thatâs why I am looking for a complementary insurance that can cover drugs not included in the base. Assura cover 50kchf for your whole life. If you change other insurance will exclude some medication from the list ⊠Helsana cover up to 75-90% of the cost without limit. Some other include a maximum of 50k by year which fell more reasonable.
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I took Helsana basic + TOP supplement. It includes 90% of costs for âconventional medicationsâ not covered by basic. If you also want complementary, thereâs the SANA. Though I donât know what complementary means here, as in do you need it and how expensive can it get. I didnât take the SANA in the end.
Yeah TOP is the most reasonable. I wanted to check the list of conventional medications compare to other.
I think TOP + SANA is a good option, especially that with SANA you also get the 200 CHF for fitness. In the end I didnât take it. I donât know, I just donât like to have this constant calculation in my head that oh yeah, itâs gonna be worth it if I also pay for fitness. It just makes you spend more.
Btw chat gpt gave some nice examples:
The complementary medicine sounds like a lot of woo woo shaman stuff. Homeopathy is a joke.
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Mandatory hours of physical activity per week per person.
Kind of joking but the only long term solution I see is having an overall healthier population. Aging doesnât help.
With Swica you get more and in addition there are other benefits
Last year I did it in the app
Look TIâŠhighest increase and highest priceâŠ
Just a 4% here, 4 people (2 kids), BL, but we are with one of the expensive ones, mine is 540CHF/month and wifeâs is 575 (incl accident insurance as sheâs not employed currently).