Disability dilemma: Swiss voters will once again be confronted with an emotive issue on June 17 when a referendum aims to overturn controversial cuts in what we spend on the country's disabled.
| Auteur | Ledsom, Mark |
| Fonction | POLITICS |
For the disability lobby and the left-wing Social Democrats who are supporting the referendum, the changes are all about kicking people when they are down. The right counters that it is a necessary first step in tackling rising fraud by 'bogus invalids'.
The only fact that is not in dispute when it comes to the planned overhaul of Switzerland's disability pensions scheme is that the scheme itself is in a seriously ill state of financial health.
Government figures released in March showed annual losses running at SFr 1.6 billion with the total debt incurred to date piling up to a frightening SFr 9.3 billion.
Since the disability pensions are provided for from the same funds that supply Switzerland's old age pensions, the government has warned of a "catastrophe" if drastic changes are not made now.
"If we don't do something the debt will double to 20 billion francs by 2012 and the pension funds will run out of gas," Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin told a March 19 press conference. "We have to put the emphasis on reintegration rather than compensation."
The reform package, which has already been through parliament and is set to come into force on January 1 2008, aims to cut annual spending over the next 18 years by an average of SFr 498 million. Half of the savings are to be achieved by reducing the number of new people receiving benefits with the other half coming from reductions in the level of payments.
It is the fifth reform proposal to be put forward since the founding of the disability pensions scheme in 1961.
Since the stated priority of the reforms is to help disabled people return to the workforce rather than rely on state handouts, those backing the changes say the disabled will themselves be the main beneficiaries of the new regime.
"Those are not just words, but something that is backed by concrete measures and investment," argues Alard du Bois-Reymond, head of invalidity insurance at the federal social insurance office.
"Along with the planned savings, we are also investing half a billion francs in programmes to help the disabled back into employment. We will increase the incentives paid to employers who take on disabled workers, and also speed up the evaluation process so that those who really cannot work start receiving financial support within a matter of months rather than the two to three years that it can take at the moment."
Unconvinced
It seems though that few of the country's disabled groups are convinced by these...
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