Swiss Reject Nationalized Health Care

Oh, those prudent Swiss!

The Swiss are rightly known for both their financial acumen and staying away from the schemes of its neighbors. They’ve just demonstrated that again.

In Switzerland it is required that residents have health insurance. They have 87 insurers to choose from.

Swiss voters, by 71%, on March 11 rejected a proposal to have a single, state-run insurer.

The initiative made it onto the ballot after the left-leaning Mouvement Populaire des Familles collected 110,000 signatures to force the vote. The group claimed the current system is too costly and wanted it replaced by a single insurer that would base premiums on wealth and income.

The Swiss have seen the medical backwardness and rationing, at huge and unaffordable budgetary and societal costs, among their national health neighbors in Europe.

Is Washington listening? Or, even better, learning?