Improving Health Insurance in America: A Comparative Analysis of Swiss and U.S. Insurance Markets

Comparisons of health systems worldwide have commonly been used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of certain health systems. The consumer-driven model of Switzerland’s health insurance market, however, has not been extensively compared with U.S. health insurance. While previous literature by Herzlinger & Parsa-Parsi (2004) and Tanner (2008) has broadly compared the two systems, a more detailed analysis has not been completed. An economic approach which controls for external factors that affect the productivity and effectiveness of health care and health insurance can help determine the relative strengths and weaknesses of each system. This paper attempts to control for these factors to analyze the characteristics of each health insurance market and their implications for health care reform in the United States