Health care has a special nature - it is partly a moral necessity and partly an ordinary consumer good. First of all it is a moral necessity. It is consequently surprising to observe the way that Health actors consider it only as an ordinary consumer good . From this strict point of view, it is by having more choice of benefits packages and providers that consumers will assume even more personal responsibility. Do they really have this choice today?

Another essential point is that many of the Swiss also would like to be product and quality conscious too, but the existing state controls over premiums and benefits do not allow them effective choice. As a moral necessity Healthcare can only be controlled by education. It is known that Swiss are price-conscious.

In addition to the mixed source of funds, price consciousness is supposed to be enabled through premium competition between insurers, choice of level of deductible, and co-payment. Subsidised dependent people are also as price-conscious as circumstances allow. The reality is that only critical education about diagnoses, pathologies, forcasts, treatments and cost can provides a high enough level of cost/quality consciousness.

Therfore we, at SwissMED.net, think that over-use of health services is above all the result of what Ivan Illich called a "Deschooling Society".

Education is the key.