The idea was that competition would also improve services, which it did to some extent. Since 1996, you have four sick funds competing, getting paid by the government and taking the big sick fund's basket of services. They were supposed to update the basket of services annually. The Minister of Finance basically kept the lid on and did not provide adequate funding to do this, so every year there's a crisis. Two of the sick funds are almost bankrupt because of this.
Every player has different motivations.
The major sick fund was rescued financially by the national health insurance bill. But I think there's a general feeling that health care should be provided for everybody without necessarily tying it to membership in the union or some organization. Everybody agreed in principle that there should be national health insurance. Most western countries now have national health insurance, except the United States. I think they also wanted it.