Longer and healthier lives for all? Successes and failures of a universal consumer-driven healthcare system, Switzerland, 1990–2014

OBJECTIVES: The ability to translate increases in life expectancy into additional years in good health is a crucial challenge for public health policies. We question the success of these policies in Switzerland, a forerunner of longevity, through the evolution of healthy life expectancy (HLE) across socioeconomic groups. METHODS: Education-specific HLE conditioning on surviving to age 30 was computed for 5-year periods from the Swiss National Cohort, a mortality follow-up of the entire resident population, and the Swiss Health Interview Survey, reporting self-rated health. We compare time trends and decompose them into health, mortality and education components. RESULTS: Between 1990 and 2015, comparable gains in LE (males: 5.02 years; females: 3.09 years) and HLE (males: 4.52 years; females: 3.09 years) were observed. People with compulsory education, however, experienced morbidity expansion, while those with middle and high education experienced morbidity compression. CONCLUSIONS: Divergence of morbid years by educational levels may reflect unequal access to preventive care due to high out-of-pockets contributions in the healthcare system. This growing gap and the exhaustion of the educational dividend jeopardize future increases in HLE. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00038-019-01290-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.