Important construction sites in the Department of Home Affairs
Published: Thursday, Dec 14th 2023, 19:40
العودة إلى البث المباشر
Pension provision and healthcare costs will challenge Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and the Department of Home Affairs. The new head of the department will be facing five referendums on these two topics in the coming months. Below is an overview of the important dossiers:
AHV: With the stabilization bill approved at the ballot box in September 2022, which includes a women's retirement age of 65 and additional funding for the AHV from VAT, the AHV has been successfully reformed again after a generation of stagnation. No major revision had been carried out since 1997 and several attempts failed. However, the latest reform is only an interim step for around ten years. Parliament has scheduled the next reform bill for the end of 2026. The votes on two AHV initiatives are due much earlier, in March 2024: These are the Young Liberals' pension initiative - which initially wants to raise the retirement age to 66 and then link it to life expectancy - and the Left's popular initiative for a 13th AHV pension.
OCCUPATIONAL PROVISION: The pension fund reform, which the left fought against in the referendum, includes a lower conversion rate for calculating pensions and compensation for members of transitional age groups. The pension scheme must compensate for the imminent retirement of the baby boomers and the growing number of pensioners compared to the working population. However, the compromise negotiated by the social partners has been far undercut by parliament, which has led to a referendum by the left. The referendum will also take place next year. Another referendum on pension provision is therefore on the cards in 2024.
HEALTH CARE COSTS: In 2024, health insurance premiums for basic insurance will rise by an average of 8.7%, the highest increase in over ten years. Measures to curb healthcare costs have been under discussion for years. Two popular initiatives are pending, the cost brake initiative of the center party and the premium relief initiative of the SP. The cost brake initiative demands that the Federal Council, parliament and cantons must intervene if healthcare costs rise too sharply compared to wage trends. The SP initiative demands that health insurance premiums should not exceed ten percent of income. There are indirect counter-proposals to both initiatives, but these do not go far enough for the initiators. The new Minister of the Interior will therefore also face two referendum battles next year.
NURSING STAFF: Hospitals and care homes are short of thousands of nurses. The Federal Council wants to implement the nursing initiative, which was approved at the ballot box in November 2021 in the wake of the Covid-19 emergency at numerous hospitals, in two stages. The first, with a training offensive expected to start in mid-2024 and run for eight years, and the possibility for nurses to bill for certain services independently, has been signed and sealed. The federal government and cantons are to contribute up to one billion Swiss francs in the form of contributions to training institutions and grants. The Federal Council wants to regulate further elements of the new constitutional article in a new law, but this cannot come into force before 2027. These include better working conditions in the care sector, professional development and better compensation for care services.
DOCTORS' RATE: For years, insurers, hospitals and the medical profession have been struggling to find a new doctors' rate to replace the outdated Tarmed, which hospitals and doctors use to bill their patients. The Tardoc tariff structure proposed by the Swiss Medical Association (FMH) and the health insurance association Curafutura - the Santésuisse association was not on board - has not yet been approved by the Federal Council, despite several attempts. The Federal Council has not yet approved the new Tardoc medical tariff.
EPIDEMIC ACT: During the Covid-19 pandemic, coordination between the federal government and the cantons repeatedly gave rise to criticism and discussions. The Federal Council now wants to counteract this with amendments to the Epidemics Act. Among other things, the escalation model with normal, special and extraordinary situations is to be adapted. The Federal Council now wants to be able to prescribe preparations for a special situation to the cantons. The Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Public Health (GDK) also believes that the responsibilities of the Confederation and cantons in a special situation need to be clarified. A legal basis for issuing the controversial certificates proving vaccination or recovery should also be written into the Epidemics Act. The consultation on the bill will last until March 2024.
DIGITALIZATION: The Covid-19 pandemic has brought it to light: too much in the healthcare sector is still done in analogue rather than digital form. Only very few people have an electronic patient file. Not only do many medical practices still work with paper, but there are also different tools in use. With changes to the law on electronic patient files, the Federal Council wants to ensure that not only inpatient hospitals and care facilities work with electronic files, but also outpatient healthcare professionals. It also plans to ensure that in future all those with basic insurance will receive an electronic dossier free of charge if they want one. The CHF 400 million Digisanté project is also intended to provide further relief: the Federal Council wants to advance digitization in the healthcare sector over the next ten years. Parliament has to decide on the necessary commitment credit.
TOBACCO ADVERTISING: In February 2022, the people and cantons approved the popular initiative entitled "Children and young people without tobacco advertising" - tobacco advertising must no longer reach children and young people in future. The Federal Council wants to implement the initiative with a comprehensive ban on advertising, for tobacco products and also for e-cigarettes. During the consultation process, the proposals were harshly criticized by the tobacco industry and the advertising industry. The Left welcomed the proposals. Parliament is currently debating the bill.
LOOTED ART: In a motion, Parliament has called for greater federal involvement in the tracing of Nazi-looted art. The Federal Council therefore set up a commission for Nazi-looted art and looted art of colonial origin. The incidents surrounding the Emil Bührle collection in the Zurich Kunsthaus had shown that better instruments were needed in Switzerland in connection with Nazi-looted art, the motion was justified in parliament. The councillors are also calling for a platform for provenance research into cultural assets based on scientific principles. Since 2016, the FOC has been supporting public and private museums with contributions to clarify and publish the provenance of artworks. The museums must publish the results of the research.
©كيستون/إسدا
Arabic 
English 
German 
French 
Spanish