Wettbewerbsorientierte Reformen im Gesundheitssystem der Schweiz - Vorbild für regulierten Wettbewerb in der deutschen GKV?

Recent reforms of the Swiss health care system to introduce regulated competition have raised expectations about the possible combination of more efficient services, while at same time maintaining or even increasing the level of solidarity in health care systems. In this article we examine expected behavioral changes of the market actors, the way incentives for market actors have been changed and analyze the way market actors in fact changed their behavior. We conclude that so far only some of the targets of the reforms have been met. For a reasonable assessment of the Swiss experience in regulating competition in health care it is paramount to distinguish expected effects from actual effects. Copyright Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2004