Currently, people who have medical problems – or have had them in the past – can’t access Switzerland’s supplementary health insurance. But moves to change this system are gaining momentum.
While the basic health insurance (KVG/LaMal) is obligatory and nobody can be turned away – regardless of their current or past medical issues – when it comes to complementary policies, they can, and do, cherry-pick.
This means that providers are allowed to refuse to cover people with chronic illnesses, or those who had been treated for various conditions in the past..
READ MORE: Should you buy supplemental health insurance in Switzerland?
What is this about?
Unlike in many other European nations, including neighbours France and Italy, in Switzerland, the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ – specifically in relation to past health problems – does not exist.
Consequently, people who have had long-term treatments must disclose their full medical history when applying for supplementary insurance, even if their health problems are very old.
Concretely, applicants must complete a questionnaire to assess the risk they (and concretely, their medical history) represent to an insurance provider.
Typically, people with a ‘medical past’ will not be insured, or else they will be covered but the plan will exclude all their ailments and corresponding treatments.
And this is where the concept of the ‘right to be forgotten’ comes into play.
Advertisement
Who is impacted by this policy?
While quite comprehensive, the KVG/LaMal will not cover dental care, eyeglasses and contact lenses, private hospital rooms, or treatments such as acupuncture, foot reflexology, osteopathy, and Chinese medicine, among others.
Complementary policies, on the other hand, pay for all that (and more), even if only partially.
It is somewhat of a paradox that the very people who may benefit fgreatly rom these treatments – for instance, cancer patients or people with chronic pain – are denied access.
Advertisement
Winds of change
A political debate is underway to try to… remedy this loophole.
Its goal is to adopt the ‘right to be forgotten’ rule, so that patients don’t have to disclose their past medical diagnoses after a certain time period.
On December 18th, MP Benjamin Roduit of the Centre party had submitted a parliamentary motion to this effect – concretely, to limit the obligation to declare one’s medical data to five years.
Not surprisingly though, this proposal has met with the opposition from the Swiss Insurance Association, which advocates for risk-based pricing – that is, the current practice.
The Federal Council must respond to this motion by early March.
