Media Ignore Swiss Health Vote
by Greg Scandlen

On March 11, 2007 the Swiss people voted overwhelmingly to reject a Single Payer health care system. But there has been not a word about it in the American press – other than a single paragraph in the trade publication Business Insurance. This is rather strange considering that the almost universal cry from the left and the media has been to adopt such a wholly government-run system for the United States

The vote was on whether to replace Switzerland’s current system of mandatory health insurance coverage provided by 87 private health plans with a single payer system based on income-related premiums. It was rejected by 71% of the voters.

If the vote had gone the other way – if the Swiss had embraced Single Payer – it would have been front page news in every newspaper in the United States, it would have been a lead story in every broadcast. Reporters would have booked flights to Geneva to interview citizens and political leaders.

This provides a sobering example of why public policy goes so wrong in the United States. The public is informed of only one side of the story. Reporters and editors are biased in favor of government intervention and against free markets. They are part of a privileged elite who think consumers are incapable of making sound decisions and intelligent choices.

But the people of Switzerland made the same choice as the American people make every time they have had an opportunity. Voters in Oregon rejected Single Payer by a vote of 79% to 21% in 2002. People do not want to be herded into a government-run cattle car. We want and demand freedom of choice in health care as in every other aspect of our lives.

Greg Scandlen is president of Consumers for Health Care Choices. Consumers for Health Care Choices is a national membership organization of citizens devoted to putting the consumer in the driver’s seat of the health care system. It was organized just over one year ago and is growing quickly as more people realize the future of health care rests with empowered consumers. The Board Chair is Daniel (Stormy) Johnson, Jr., MD, a radiologist in Metairie, Louisiana, and former president of the American Medical Association