There Will Be No SwissSure

What’s the difference between Switzerland and Minnesota?

  1. The Swiss don’t have a football team – but if they did, they’d be better than the Vikings
  2. The Swiss are too smart to socialize their healthcare system:

And it wasn’t even close:  62 percent, mostly German, voted to tube the proposal to socialize Switzerland’s healthcare system.

Hey, speaking of Minnesota – does any of this sound familiar?

“Our health system is among the top performers in the world. Competition between health insurers and freedom of choice for clients play a major role in this,” it added.

Going public would have been a major shift for a country whose health system is often hailed abroad as a paragon of efficiency, but is a growing source of frustration at home because of soaring costs…

And how are the costs soaring?

…”Over the past 20 years in Switzerland, health costs have grown 80 percent and insurance premiums 125 percent,” ophthalmologist Michel Matter told AFP.

That’s bad.  Nothing like the US healthcare system, between the past ten years and Obamacare, but it’s certainly a problem. 

Still – what do the Swiss know that we – and by “we” I mean “a plurality of our Democrat neighbors” – don’t?

10 thoughts on “There Will Be No SwissSure

  1. “1.The Swiss don’t have a football team – but if they did, they’d be better than the Vikings.” Yet no “The Rare Sports Post” tag.
    Likely to get me banned: Does the proprietor of this small yet regionally prominent blog want to note how much Jay Cutler and Mark Dayton are alike in facial expression and execution of their job?
    On topic: Swiss education system is in fact “above average”. Wonder if it is because they spend education money “educating” instead of diverting to self-esteem improvement”? Might explain why a 6-3 majority of voters realize how bad their health care system will get if they socialized medicine.

  2. Does the proprietor of this small yet regionally prominent blog want to note how much Jay Cutler and Mark Dayton are alike in facial expression and execution of their job?

    Too soon.

    On topic: Swiss education system is in fact “above average”. Wonder if it is because they spend education money “educating” instead of diverting to self-esteem improvement”? Might explain why a 6-3 majority of voters realize how bad their health care system will get if they socialized medicine

    It’s because the Swiss refer almost every piece of legislation of major significance to referenda – where most of the really radical stuff gets voted down by the conservative rural Germans.

  3. It’s also worth noting that the Swiss, while a nation for centuries, still defer a lot of decisions to the individual cantons. We should be so smart.

  4. QUOTE: It’s also worth noting that the Swiss, while a nation for centuries, still defer a lot of decisions to the individual cantons. We should be so smart.

    Excessive centralized government is usually a horrible way to operate. It’s clearly a disaster for the USA.

    Too much Fed and too much repealing of republic-style governance.

    We are doomed.

  5. …”Over the past 20 years in Switzerland, health costs have grown 80 percent and insurance premiums 125 percent,” ophthalmologist Michel Matter told AFP

    In swiss franks, please. Talking in percentages is useless and misleading.

  6. American progressives have always tried to centralize policy creation and policy enforcement, make every aspect of citizens’ lives a matter of policy, and make the formation of policy a non-democratic process.
    What’s the matter, aren’t you for progress?

  7. JPA, back in 1989, you got about 1.5-1.6 franc/dollar. Today you get 1.05. Inflation since 1989; 1.92. So in 1989, a franc got about 66 cents worth, today 95 cents/1.92 or about 50 cents. So it appears that the franc has gained about 30% in value vs. the USD since then.

    Moderate that somewhat to go to 1994 instead of 1989, but it would appear that an 80% rise in franc premiums would be nearly a doubling in overall costs.

    And the overall? Here you go.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Switzerland

    Here, about $8100 per capita if I’m reading the chart right; there, about $5700. I can think of a few things I’d do if I had that $2400 per capita back for my family of eight. :^)

  8. Ruh-Roh!! Where will ‘teh’ smart people be getting their talking points to refute MBerg from now?
    “Minnesota 2020, a progressive think tank founded by former DFL legislator Matt Entenza seven years ago, is shutting down.”
    http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/277529411.html
    How about Entenza and that board, eh? Based on a check of the website, they had the MN2020 staff pumping out product even as they were leading them behind the barn to be dispatched. Helps to have no soul.
    Apparently the oil heiresses, department store progeny and other super-rich lefty’s who run the Democrat Party had no more stomach for married his money Entenza and decided to put their mega dollars into libeling a back, make that way-back, bencher like Torrey Westrom and slandering newcomer and not quite rich enough Stewart Mills.
    RIP MN2020 – that would be your shallow grave over there, to the left.

  9. Let me correct myself; it appears that the swiss franc has gained about 30% in real terms since then, but about 50% vs the dollar. It’s one of the few currencies in the world that has not lost serious value to inflation–I think the old Deutschmark was another. Not sure about the Euro.

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