Health insurance: Elected officials protect themselves from transparency on their mandates

If elected officials sit or have a paid mandate within health insurance, it is known; the law requires them to declare their links of interest. On the other hand, how much they touch, motus and closed mouth. National Councilor Lorenzo Quadri (Lega / TI) tabled a parliamentary initiative in September asking that elected officials make their salaries public.

First stage of the treatment of its text: the commission of political institutions of the National Council. This communicated on Friday and is positioned with 13 votes against 9 in opposition to the idea of ​​the Ticino, who sits with the UDC group. “It is arbitrary to target only representatives of health insurance funds, to the exclusion of other holders of mandates in the field of health or representatives of companies who receive subsidies from the Confederation”, considers the majority of elected officials.

Lorenzo Quadri, in his initiative, had explained that no, precisely, his choice was not arbitrary. “A special treatment is justified for this type of mandates insofar as, unlike other companies, the health insurance funds offer, with the basic insurance, compulsory insurance under the law”, he said.

Not enough to convince his colleagues, who add “that there are already rules of transparency which oblige all parliamentarians to declare their ancillary activities and to specify whether these activities are remunerated or not.”

Note that, at the beginning of December, another intervention of this type was tabled in Parliament, by Liza Mazzone (Green/GE), this time. Its text aims to ensure that elected officials are obliged to declare the amounts of all their remunerated mandates; but not the exact amount, but ranges of income. It has not yet been processed by the commissions.