By Joseph Q. Jarvis | Published: 21 July 2026
Nuno Sa is from Portugal but has lived for ten years in Switzerland. He’s employed in the travel industry and loves to talk about and show off the beauty of his adopted country. He picked me and my wife up at the Zurich Airport last night after a horrific 30 hour trans-Atlantic trek during which we lost our luggage. He placed us in cooled vibrating seats in his van and whisked us two hours into the Berner Oberland.
Here he is standing outside the train station in Lauterbrunnen Switzerland with its famous waterfall lit up behind him. He helped us find a seat on the next train to Wengen, a mountain town which allows no automobile traffic. We are staying in a new resort hotel there and as I write this I’m still waiting to see the view of the Jungfrau Joch from my room that the sunrise will bring.
As he drove us the two hours from Zurich to Lauterbrunnen, I asked him about his experiences with the Swiss healthcare system. He said that everyone who lives in Switzerland is required to buy health insurance. When he first arrived ten years ago he got around to making his health insurance arrangements three months after taking up residence. The Swiss law requires paying a health insurance premium every month so, even though he had not used the health care system during those 90 days, he had to backpay the premiums. People who fail to pay for the required health insurance will have their credit rating ruined which can make life hard in Switzerland, even impossible.
Nuno pays 350 Swiss franks per month for his health insurance. The only portion paid by his employer is for the workers compensation part of his healthcare risk profile. He has a deductible of 1500 Swiss francs and co-insurance of 10%. While that is more expensive than the cost of healthcare in many countries, it is of course much less expensive than similar costs in the United States.
The Swiss government regulates the prices of medical care, medications, and medical devices. These cost one-half to one-tenth as much as the price we pay for them in America. Swiss health insurers must guarantee that they will issue health insurance to any resident who applies and the premiums, deductibles, and co-insurance are highly regulated (life in Switzerland is highly regulated in all aspects). Once on the beneficiary list of a Swiss health insurer you cannot be denied or kicked off at the whim of the insurer. There is no fine print which allows unilateral actions by the insurer to adversely affect the insured. Swiss health insurance is nothing like American health insurance. Swiss health insurers are held accountable for the health financing of their beneficiaries.
While a Swiss resident may lose his/her good credit rating if the required health insurance premiums are not paid what he or she will never lose is their life due to not being able to pay for medically necessary care. No one in need of care is ever turned away. The Swiss also never lose their financial shirts due to the cost of illness or injury care. No one goes bankrupt in Switzerland due to the cost of care.
In summary, both the US and the Swiss health systems are expensive compared to healthcare in other wealthy nations, ranking #1 and #2 in cost respectively. But the Swiss system is $6000/person/year less expensive, guarantees everyone that medically necessary care will always be rendered, and never bankrupts a patient or his/her family due to healthcare costs.
Swiss health insurers or sickness funds are very unlike American health insurance. They are highly regulated and cannot deny, delay, or otherwise game the health financing of their beneficiaries. It has become common for American health policy analysts to say that a single payer system is not necessary to fix American health system woes while pointing to the Swiss system of multiple private payers. What these pundits fail to acknowledge is that American health insurers will resist the regulation required to tame them into a Swiss level of performance with the same ferocity that they fight single payer reform.
As stated here previously, American politics is basically a fight over healthcare. Since the fight to achieve a Swiss style multi payer healthcare system will be as onerous as the fight to achieve single payer healthcare, why not fight for the better, simpler and therefore less expensive healthcare system financed fairly for all?
You can learn more about single payer health system reform at View source at utahcares.health
The fight to reform healthcare in the US is in your hands. Political campaigns cost money. Stop supporting the campaigns of politicians who are helping American health insurers deny, delay, and destroy the care of our patients. Donate to the Utah Cares campaign, even small amounts, and join the fight for better, simpler care financed fairly for all.
Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a public health physician, chair of the Utah Cares Political Issue Committee and author of several books, including The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care and What the Single Eye Sees: Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Pursuit of Discipleship.