Exorbitant health premiums, limited care: where is the scam?

In Switzerland, health insurance is compulsory and premiums increase every year. However, certain medications remain excluded from basic coverage and people give up treatment due to lack of means. How can we accept that, in one of the richest countries in the world, access to care still depends on each person’s financial capacity?

With such high premiums, how can we justify certain medications remaining excluded from reimbursement by basic insurance? Why is additional insurance sometimes necessary to access certain treatments? Paying more to benefit from better coverage could be understandable. But paying more and more without having the guarantee of access to the necessary care is a completely different reality.

This situation is all the more difficult to accept when we learn that in 2025, health insurers made 511 million € in profits on their capital investments in the area of ​​compulsory healthcare insurance alone. Worse: according to national advisor Benoît Gaillard, our health premiums benefit in particular an American real estate fund, which rents at great expense the buildings in which hospitals operate.

While these investments generate income, households struggle to pay their premiums and some forgo necessary care. This situation raises a legitimate question about the priorities of the system and how insurers’ revenues could help alleviate the burden on policyholders.

To justify the increases, we often cite the aging of the population. But this demographic evolution has been known for decades. Why were its consequences on healthcare financing not better anticipated?

In my eyes, the contradiction is glaring: insurance is compulsory, premiums are rising, but protection remains limited for certain policyholders. Health should never become a luxury reserved for those who can afford it. When people have to give up treatment despite imposed contributions, the citizen is entitled to wonder: is this a scam or authorized racketeering?