Zug,29.11.2018

437

Only a few cantons draw up a so-called blacklist of people who fail to pay their health insurance premiums or the fees for treatment they have received. However, Zug is one of these and, as of the end of last year, 437 people were on it.

The canton has in fact been drawing up this list since 2012. Since this time, the various health insurance companies have been able to claim unpaid bills for monthly membership or treatment meted out and such like from the public purse, to the tune of 85 per cent, at any rate.

In a reply to a question tabled by the SP parliamentary party, the government said that the keeping of such a list had not caused any undue negative response, the individual municipalities simply carrying out their duty in this regard in a pragmatic and efficient administrative way, as does the canton. According to a survey carried out at the canton’s clinics and hospitals, no-one has ever been denied medical treatment in life-threatening circumstances or other urgent cases.

It was mentioned that, of the 437 people on the list at the end of last December, 27 people had been deleted from it, without any reason having been given. Over the course of that year, the individual municipalities had had to pay CHF 845,000, i.e. the 85 per cent contribution, as mentioned. However, the health insurances paid CHF 102,000 to the municipalities in return; they pay back 50 per cent when 100 per cent is settled by the debtor.

The government mentioned it was important to distinguish between those people who did not want to pay, and those who cannot, with an individual reduction in premiums and social contributions able to be claimed in this latter case.

It is those who declined to pay who were included on the blacklist, though it was not clear whether this move had a preventive effect. It was mentioned how only a few debtors reacted to demands by the official debt enforcement agency.