- In just under four weeks, Swiss voters will decide on two initiatives on health care costs, one from the Center Party and one from the SP.
- Now a center-left committee that supports both initiatives has launched the voting campaign.
“Two times yes against the cost shock”: With this slogan, a center-left committee is committed to a yes to the SP’s premium relief initiative and also to the center party’s cost-cutting initiative. There is a need for double pressure on politicians.
National Council members from the SP and the Center presented the committee’s arguments to the media on Monday in Bern. A double yes on June 9th could lay the foundation in the constitution for more justice and more efficiency in the healthcare system.
Committee: “Parliament has failed”
The initiatives complemented each other because, on the one hand, they capped healthcare costs for families and, on the other hand, stopped waste. Parliament failed with the counter-proposals to the two referendums. After a double yes, the councils could improve the implementation of the initiatives at the legislative level, it was said.
The delegates from the SP and the center decided on the yes slogans for their own initiative and the no slogans for the other initiative. In the committee’s eyes, party political considerations were the deciding factor in the decisions made by the party base.
“We want to overcome these tactical, party-political rifts,” said National Councilor Stefan Müller-Altermatt (centre/SO) according to the text of the speech. The SP party leadership asked the delegates to say yes to the cost brake, and the result was a no. The premium relief received a large number of yes votes from the centrist delegates.
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Both the premium relief initiative and the cost brake initiative will be voted on on June 9th.
Keystone/CHRISTIAN BEUTLER
However, the committee has not yet decided on a common catalog of measures, as Vaud SP National Councilor Roger Nordmann explained in response to a journalist’s question. It is crucial to first have a common constitutional basis.
More justice
In order to ease the premium burden for families and medium-sized businesses, the committee believes that the premium relief initiative is the right approach. It ensures more justice, said Nordmann and called the bounty a “particularly unfair tax”.
The cost brake initiative calls for measures to counter rising costs and thus ensures greater efficiency, said Nordmann. Possible ways to achieve this include an electronic patient record worthy of the name, national hospital planning and the development of the outpatient sector and the capping of certain tariffs.
SP National Councilor Céline Widmer (ZH) also identified an approach to saving when it comes to drug prices and unnecessary treatments from specialists. The “pseudo competition” among health insurance companies also generates unnecessary costs, she said, referring to media reports about high salaries of health insurance company bosses.
If unnecessary costs caused by inefficiency and profiteering in the healthcare system were contained, families and middle classes would already be sufficiently relieved of the burden on premiums, according to Müller-Altermatt’s speech.
In the words of Giorgio Fonio (center/TI), the No camp is investing a lot of money in a campaign that works with horror scenarios of the possible consequences of a Yes vote. Some players in the healthcare sector did not want to change anything, but wanted to stay with a system that benefits the few to the detriment of the many.