Health insurance - Survey
Event details
| Date | 12.02.2014 › 15.02.2014 |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Are you a foreign graduate student or postdoc in Switzerland? For health insurance, have you been covered by SwissCare, ScoreStudies, or a similar company offering affordable coverage for foreign researchers?
Not anymore.
Due to changes to the Swiss national law OAMal/KVV art. 2.4., effective January 1, 2014, academic post-docs and grad students are being denied eligibility for this coverage, which is decided by each individual canton [links below].
For example, in Vaud and Geneva, researchers earning over a monthly limit (3500 CHF brut/month in Vaud) can no longer be granted "exceptions" to take these insurances. Now we are only eligible for the same insurances as Swiss Citizens.
Is this so bad, you may ask?
To keep the same conditions (annual deductible/franchise), it will cost you at least 3 times as much.
For example, through SwissCare, a 33-year-old postdoc residing in the Lausanne area paid 89.50 CHF per month (1074 CHF per year) with a 500 CHF annual deductible.
The same postdoc will now pay 298 CHF per month (3,576 CHF per year) for the same deductible (source: Supra quote, comparis.ch).
Even choosing the highest possible deductible (2,500 CHF) costs more than twice as much, 197.80 CHF per month (2373.60 per year).
Basically meaning, unless you get very sick and your health costs rise above 2,500 CHF in the year, your 197.80 CHF monthly insurance payment earns you nothing. Moreover, healthcare costs due to an accident are covered by the accident insurance of the university.
This change in the law affects thousands of graduate students and postdocs in the Lausanne area, yet most of us know nothing about it. We object to the standards for exemption set by the canton of Vaud, and request those who agree to voice their opinion and join us in demanding a reassessment.
We understand that Swiss citizens may think we should pay the same insurance costs as they. However, academic research performed by foreigners temporarily residing in Switzerland is a large industry, and Switzerland is world-renown for the quality of its research. To remain an attractive destination for foreign researchers, it is important to continue to offer benefits which offset the considerable cost of temporarily relocating to Switzerland for studies or a postdoc.
Moreover, the idea of a long-term general health insurance is that while you may pay a large amount of money into the system while you are younger, this ensures that you can have adequate care after retirement, when medical costs are usually highest. In the past, we only qualified for the LAMAL exemption for our first 5 years in Switzerland, after which nearly all of us will leave for another research position elsewhere. Now, during these 5 years most of us will only pay insurance without getting anything in return. Without the exemption, only those very few of us who settle permanently in Switzerland will ever be able to benefit from the contributions made to the Swiss healthcare system during our time here. We feel that the canton of Vaud should consider this and keep the exemption for PhD-students and academic postdocs, regardless of salary.
If the canton is not willing to reconsider their criteria for exemption, we strongly advise that the universities work with insurance companies to negotiate a reduced-cost plan for all grad students and postdocs, regardless of nationality. This alternative approach would also reduce costs for Swiss academics, encouraging young researchers to stay in academia rather than driving them into more lucrative private positions by default, only to meet the ever-rising cost of living. It is in the best interest of the universities and the canton to remain attractive to prospective academic researchers in order for Switzerland to remain on the leading edge of scientific research.
SwissCare Update on new law:
http://www.swisscare-intl.com/swisscare/switzerland/info/news/news/datum/2014/01/24/researchers-in-switzerland.html
OAMal/KVV art. 2.4
http://www.admin.ch/opc/fr/classified-compilation/19950219/index.html
Canton Vaud
http://www.vd.ch/themes/social/prestations-assurances-et-soutien/assurance-maladie/derogation/
Links
Practical information
- General public
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Contact
- Sabrina Vollers sabrina.vollers@unil.ch