Our Voting Recommendations for 9 June 2024

The Federal Act on a Secure Electricity Supply (Electricity Act) aims to accelerate Switzerland's transition to renewable energies. The law provides for financing instruments and new regulations for the generation, transmission, storage and consumption of electricity. This means that more solar panels should be installed on buildings and the planning conditions for hydropower, wind power and large solar plants should be simplified.
We at Volt call for a Europe-wide green electricity supply based 100% on renewable energies by 2035. While the law is not very ambitious and Switzerland is far from fulfilling its responsibility, it is a good first step in the right direction. Therefore, we support this law.
In the long term, we demand that Switzerland expands on renewables much further. Switzerland was a pioneer in hydropower and we would like it to once again take the lead in the ecological transformation instead of lagging behind.

The health system initiatives both aim to reduce healthcare costs, but with completely different approaches. The Premium Relief Initiative calls for a premium cap for insured persons of a maximum of 10 percent of their disposable income. In return, more premium subsidies should be paid out, at least two thirds of which should be paid by the federal government and at most one third by the cantons. This should alleviate the financial premium burden for private households and also create incentives for the cantons and the federal government to seek longer-term solutions in the financing of the healthcare system.
We at Volt support this proposal and want to use it to take the financial pressure of the unsocial and inefficient Swiss healthcare system off private households and thus call on the federal government and cantons to finally take action. However, this is only the beginning for us: We demand an efficient state-run single health insurance company that provides statutory benefits for all people and is financed through an income-related premium or directly through taxes. Such a centralisation eliminates many currently redundant costs of private health insurance companies, such as marketing or personnel costs, which are currently passed on to the insured.

The cost brake initiative, on the other hand, wants to link the costs of compulsory health insurance to wage developments and economic growth. The federal government, the cantons, service providers and health insurance companies should take cost-saving measures for this purpose. This means that even legitimate future increases in healthcare costs, such as new therapies and drugs, would be severely restricted without any concrete financial relief for private households. This inevitably leads to a deterioration in medical care, which is unsocial and hardly in the interests of Switzerland. Volt does not want a two-tier society in medical care, which is why Volt stands for a NO to the cost brake initiative.

We at Volt vehemently reject the fourth initiative "For Freedom and Physical Integrity". The harmlessly named initiative was launched during the Covid period and comes from science-hostile conspiracy groups. They want to ban the health-protection measures that had to be taken during the Covid pandemic. This would include, among other things, the mask requirement and the use of the Covid vaccination certificate.
As a science-based party, we stand behind the measures that had to be taken during Covid and that have saved so many lives worldwide.

Tl;dr

• YES to the Federal Act on a Secure Electricity Supply

• YES to the Premium Relief Initiative

• NO to the Cost Brake Initiative

• NO to the Popular Initiative "For Freedom and Physical Integrity"