Swiss Health System Overview
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Health System Outcomes
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Costs for Consumers
Health System Expenditures
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Total Health Spending, US$ PPP Per Capita (2020): $7,179
(Note: “Health spending measures the final consumption of health care goods and services (i.e. current health expenditure) including personal health care (curative care, rehabilitative care, long-term care, ancillary services and medical goods) and collective services (prevention and public health services as well as health administration), but excluding spending on investments. Health care is financed through a mix of financing arrangements including government spending and compulsory health insurance (“Government/compulsory”) as well as voluntary health insurance and private funds such as households’ out-of-pocket payments, NGOs and private corporations (“Voluntary”). This indicator is presented as a total and by type of financing (“Government/compulsory”, “Voluntary”, “Out-of-pocket”) and is measured as a share of GDP, as a share of total health spending and in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs).”
Source: OECD (2022), Health spending (indicator). doi: 10.1787/8643de7e-en (Accessed on 30 August 2022)
Current Health Expenditure Per Capita In US$ (2019): $9,666
Source: Global Health Observatory. Current health expenditure (CHE) per capita in US$. Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed August 30, 2022.
Current Health Expenditure As Percentage Of Gross Domestic Product (2019): 11.29%
Source: Global Health Observatory. Current health expenditure (CHE) as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) (%). Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed August 30, 2022.
Out-Of-Pocket Expenditure As Percentage Of Current Health Expenditure (2019): 25.29%
Source: Global Health Observatory. Out-of-pocket expenditure as percentage of current health expenditure (CHE) (%). Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed August 30, 2022.
Out-Of-Pocket Expenditure Per Capita In US$ (2019): $2,445
Source: Global Health Observatory. Out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP) per capita in US$. Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed August 30, 2022.
Annual out-of-pocket payment, constant (2017) PPP per capita (USD) (2017): $2,379
Source: Global Health Expenditure Database. Health expenditure series. Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed Oct. 6, 2020.
Current Health Expenditure Per Capita (USD) (2016): $9,836
Current Health Expenditure as Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (%) (2016): 12.2%
Domestic General Government Health Expenditure as Percentage of General Government Expenditure (%) (2016): 22.4%
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 10% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 25% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA
Source: World health statistics 2019: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
“Public expenditure on health consists of three parts (Figs. 3.5 and 3.6):
“• MHI [Mandatory Health Insurance], which was the largest purchaser in the health system in 2012, spending 35.8% of THE [Total Health Expenditure] (right-hand side of Fig. 3.5). Revenues of MHI companies (left-hand side of Fig. 3.5) come from premiums paid by MHI policy-holders (30.0% of THE) and/or subsidies for premiums (5.8% of THE) paid out of budgets of the Confederation and cantons.
“• Other social insurance (SI), which accounted for 10.7% of THE. The SI consists of the health-related parts of the accident insurance (UV/AA), the old-age insurance (AHV/AVS), the disability insurance (IV/AI), the military insurance (MV/AM) and the complementary payments of AHV-IV/AVS-AI (EL/PC). Revenues of the different SI schemes again come from premiums paid by policy-holders (4.4%) and subsidies (6.3%) paid out of public budgets.
“• Direct spending by government, which was the second most important source of spending, accounting for 20.3% of THE in 2012. Direct spending is financed from taxes collected by the Confederation, cantons and municipalities, and excludes the expenditure for premiums and other health-related subsidies. The largest part of these expenses were made by cantons (17.2%), followed by municipalities (2.9%) and by the Confederation (0.2%).”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.
“Private expenditure amounted to 33.2% of THE [Total Health Expenditure] in 2012 and consisted of three expenditure categories:
“• Direct payments, which were responsible for about two thirds of all private expenditure on health (or 20.5% of THE) in 2012. This also includes other private funding for health (mostly donations and bequests to non-governmental organizations; NGOs), which has always accounted for around 1.0% of THE since 1995.
“• Cost sharing for services covered by MHI (5.5%) and VHI (0.1%), together accounting for 5.5% of THE.
“• VHI, which accounted for only 7.2% of THE in 2012, because of a continuous decline from 12.4% in 1995 and 9.0% in 2005.”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.
“Comparing the share of public expenditure on health out of THE [Total Health Expenditure] to other countries (Fig. 3.7) shows that Switzerland is one of the countries with the lowest share of public expenditure on health in the Western European Region: 66% of THE stems from public sources. The most important reason for this is that an exceptionally large proportion of health care is financed by OOP [Out Of Pocket] payments (25.9% of THE in 2013).”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.
“Health care expenditure varies considerably across the country (Fig. 3.4). In 2012, somewhat less than Sw.fr.4200 per capita (i.e. for the resident population of each canton) was spent on average in Switzerland by MHI companies (net expenditure, i.e. after deduction of user charges) and government (e.g. payments for inpatient care, when excluding investments in hospital structures, research and development, and the other social insurance funds to improve inter-cantonal comparability). However, per capita expenditure for the population living in the ‘most expensive canton’, Basel-Stadt (BS, Sw.fr.5900), was almost two times higher than the amount spent for the population in the ‘least expensive’ canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden (AI, Sw.fr.3000). Besides Basel-Stadt, the second exclusively urban canton of Geneva (GE) stands out with costs of Sw.fr.5800, which is substantially more than the next most expensive cantons, Neuchâtel (NE, Sw.fr.4800), Vaud (VD, Sw.fr.4700) and Bern (BE, Sw.fr.4500).”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.
Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.
Page last updated August 30, 2022 by Doug McVay, Editor.
