Why Switzerland hospital prices are lower
Switzerland sets one hospital price — a DRG, a tariff, or a budget. The hospital takes it. It cannot charge each plan a different secret multiple. In the US the must-have hospital extracts 2–3× Medicare from job plans that cannot walk. The insurer passes that through. It does not set it.
SwissDRG + cantonal planning
How it works
Inpatient care is billed on SwissDRG — one national DRG catalog. Cantons plan which hospitals exist. Mandatory insurers pay the tariff. They do not each invent a unique multiple of Medicare.
Why it holds
The hospital cannot threaten to leave ‘the network’ because the network is the canton. If the rate is too low, the fight is political and public, not a secret contract. That is why Switzerland is the next-most-expensive OECD country and still about 55¢ on the US hospital dollar.
The invoices
See iFHP, RAND hospitals, Papanicolas.