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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
BERN, Switzerland Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether their nation should have a single health insurer.
The initiative that comes to a vote on Sunday was launched in 2004 by the left-leaning Mouvement Populaire des Familles, which claimed the current system is too costly. The group gathered more than 110,000 signatures to force a vote on the constitutional change.
Residents will vote whether to replace the 87 insurance companies that currently provide health coverage with a single state-run insurer that would charge premiums based on wealth and income.
Health premiums in Switzerland have risen steadily in recent years and opponents of the single-insurer proposal claim it would send premiums even higher.
Under Swiss law, all residents are required to take out basic health insurance.