M. Price continues to put pressure on public transport

news-single-imgcaption" style="width:240px">In the field of health, much remains to be done, but Stefan Meierhans welcomes the drop in generic prices, estimated at 400 million francs per year. (Keystone)

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The 2.6 million holders of a half-price subscription were automatically credited with 15 francs, highlighted Mr. Stefan Meierhans Price to the press Monday in Bern by presenting his annual report. According to SBB, compensation amounts to around 230 million francs.

Due to the fall in the price of train paths, he also expects general price reductions at the change of timetable in December 2020. The supply of supersaver tickets from the fare communities has not yet been satisfied, a- he noted again: sometimes the traveler still has to pay for a certain journey more expensive than another longer.

Pay at the counter: curb rising costs

Mr. Prix has put his nose in many other sectors. With PostFinance, it has agreed to limit the increase in fees when paying at the counter. With La Poste, they have agreed on the price of letters and parcels for 2020: private customers can thus obtain price reductions, for example by using online labeling of packages.

In the field of health, much remains to be done, but Stefan Meierhans welcomes the drop in generic prices, estimated at 400 million francs per year. He regrets “the ten years it will have taken to achieve this result and the 4 billion francs that could have been saved and invested elsewhere”.

Its service intervened for the first time with complementary hospital insurance. Its purpose is to reduce the overrated rates of supplementary insurance to a reasonable level.

A new price comparison by the supervisor shows that those for hearing aids are higher in Switzerland than in other European countries. A better group purchasing policy would result in significantly lower prices, he said.

Free basic education

In the area of ​​placement of young people in specialized educational structures, Mr. Prix noted that the contributions of parents varied greatly from one region to another. Depending on the cantons, they amount to between 10 and 42 francs per day. However, the Constitution provides for free basic education.

Mr. Prix looked again at the gas, electricity and telecommunications markets. In the latter area, the Federal Communications Commission, ComCom, has significantly reduced the prices for access to the Swisscom network: this should lower consumer prices, the report said.

Prices contested by the public

Price monitoring dealt with 1679 price disputes from the public. These mainly concerned prices and tariffs in the fields of public transport (19%), telecommunications (13%) and health (11%). The price monitor has obtained seven new friendly solutions.

The authorities have submitted 608 proposed tariff changes to the price monitor. In 224 cases, the latter issued a recommendation. The greatest number of recommendations concern the tariffs for waste as well as those for water and purification (114). (AWP)

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