Switzerland’s healthcare is now the world’s most expensive. That should worry the people who have the responsibility to the citizens of this country, the FOPH, the politicians and the health insurers. It certainly worries us, the people who are paying for it.
On 24 January 2023, I wrote a letter to the members of the Swiss Federal parliament expressing my concern about the rising cost of healthcare. Twenty five of them deleted the letter unread. You can see who they are here.
Martin Candinas, the National Council president responded, confirming that this is the responsibility of the FOPH. It is, and as I replied to him, I have communicated with them several times with nothing more than a courteous response. Nevertheless, I wrote to the FOPH again. This time there has not even been a response.
There are some very simple ways to decrease the cost of healthcare without any negative impact on the quality of treatment, starting with the cost of medication.
The pharmaceutical companies spend twice as much on marketing their products as they do on research and development, and yet their excuse for the high cost of their products is the costs of research and development. R&D very little to do with the prohibitively high cost of their medications.[1]Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients
It that’s the case, then why is is necessary for big pharma to spend so much money marketing their drugs.
The reason: we want the best healthcare, because that’s what we’re paying a lot of money for.
So the drug companies using marketing to convince us, the consumers that the products they are selling are the best – when in fact very often, the newer version of a medication is no better than the one it is replacing, and which, because it is not longer patent protected, is significantly cheaper.
There are countries, most notably the United Kingdom, where they are actively educating doctors of the generic alternatives to expensive branded pharmaceuticals, and saving taxpayers hundred of millions of pounds in the process.
We should be doing the same.
In its 2030 strategy, the FOPH states its objective of using technology to reduce the cost of healthcare. We wrote them a letter three years ago asking for the specifics. At the time, they said they were too busy dealing with the COVID pandemic.
Apparently they still are no closer to a solution.
And so the cost of healthcare continues to rise.
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