Can the Swiss health care system work here? “Every resident of Switzerland is required to buy health insurance. If they don’t, they pay stiff monetary penalties. Companies have no role. Health-care plans are chosen at the kitchen table, not through employee benefit departments.

And the plans can be costly. A family of four in Switzerland pays an average of $680 a month in premiums. Government assistance helps pay premiums for those less well off.

Health-care prices are set each year after negotiations between insurance companies and medical providers. The fee schedule has to be approved by the Swiss canton (or state) governments — an approach Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University compares to the doomed health-reform plan drafted by the Clinton administration.”