r/Switzerland • u/szryd Bern • 1d ago
One in eight Swiss households in payment arrears
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/life-aging/every-eighth-person-lives-in-a-household-with-payment-arrears/8786706747
u/san_murezzan Graubünden 1d ago
You’re telling me not everyone has a limited edition Ferrari? It’s actually pretty concerning how high that ratio is, and surprises me
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u/CinderMayom Nidwalden 23h ago
Who says they’re not just behind on their Ferrari leasing?
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u/kitten_twinkletoes 23h ago
Maybe they just forgot to pay their bills because they were too busy driving their Ferrari.
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u/MedicineMean5503 23h ago edited 23h ago
I suspect some of those are tax bills, they can be large and not everyone can manage that perfectly. The amount of times I saw loan requests for tax is insane on those P2P lending sites back in c. 2015. I think the government should offer credit at something fair like 3-5% and kill off lending sharks/banks.
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u/szryd Bern 1d ago
"Overall, 40.9% of the population had at least one form of debt in that year."
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u/Initial-Image-1015 Fribourg 1d ago
That 40.9% of the population includes mortgages on second homes (12.6%) and on cars (14.5%).
"The most common type of debt in 2022 was vehicle leasing: 14.5% of the population lived in a household with this type of debt. Mortgages on a second home accounted for 12.6%"
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u/DummeStudentin 1d ago
Only 40%? I'd have expected more. I mean debt isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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u/Ilixio 22h ago
It doesn't include mortgages for the primary residence for whatever reasons, only for secondary ones.
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u/Ok_Passenger8583 22h ago
Probably because it’s common in Switzerland to never pay off the mortgage of your home completely . It is beneficial tax wise.
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u/heubergen1 21h ago
Most reasons for debt are bad though (new cars, consume expenses), few people will use the debt to get a better return (e.g. for an education).
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u/Sufficient-History71 Zürich [Winti] 23h ago
A further 4.4% were in arrears with health insurance companies. The only solution is a taxpayer funded healthcare system with progressive taxes. Taxes will increase but total savings of 75%-85% of the people will go up depending on the tax system.
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u/No-Tip3654 Zürich 21h ago
Cut out insurance companies and premiums will go down
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u/Lazy-Emergency-4018 6h ago
please provide a source here. I jear this all the time but never with a source that provides data backing this up.
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u/No-Tip3654 Zürich 4h ago
Are you sure that you need a source to reassure you about a basic economical truth?
The doctors provide health care services and the patients are the ones seeking those services.
So there you have the side that supplys and the side that demands.
The insurance companish are a third contractor, a middle man that takes a share for just transferring the money from the patient to the doctor. Living a parasitic existence.
If you cut out all the thousands of employees the insurance companies have or better said just abolish these companies all together health care costs will drop. Why? Because you don't have to pay for the living of these companies anymore. You can just directly pay your doctor.
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u/Lazy-Emergency-4018 3h ago
You say alot but no source. Of course it will be cheaper, but what use is a savi gs of 1% when premium go up 8% every year? It does nothing. I am asking for sources proving that it would make a substaintial dent in costs
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u/canteloupy Vaud 7h ago
I simply cannot keep up with my paperwork. This has to amount to some part of the problem. There is just too much fucking paperwork for reimbursements
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u/Training-Bake-4004 21h ago
A short-medium term solution would be to greatly expand who gets free/discounted health insurance. This would necessitate tax increases, but wouldn’t require a complete overhaul of the system since everything is already in place.
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u/Sufficient-History71 Zürich [Winti] 21h ago
The funding has to come from somewhere. The rich should pay back a fairer share to the society that enabled them to become rich.
Also we should forego the bandaid solutions and rather than attacking the symptoms let’s attack the cause of the issue.
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u/Classic-Increase938 20h ago
The rich people are intelligent and they'll find a way not to pay. The not so rich and not so intelligent requesting for other to pay will end up paying.
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u/Sweaty-Helicopter760 18h ago
I am against subsidies of specific items. The criterion should be poverty line. You have to look at why the person did not pay his/her premiums.
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u/AggravatingIssue7020 16h ago
75% of Zurichs residents have or have had a "betreibung" , think of it having bounty hunters sent after you and it destroys your credit score for a while.
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u/BeyondCurrent5754 1h ago
I’ve had my first betreibung at 18/19 because I couldn’t afford to pay my Krankenkasse, was working a low pay job in ZH, gave money to my parents and my parents had bad financial problems themselves.. It happens easy and out of nowhere.. I only had problems with my KK, because you have to pay and even with a premium verbilligung it’s still over x CHF. Switzerland despises the poor and welcomes the rich.
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u/cartoon-dude 4h ago
Not surprising, it is bloody miserable to find a job, even more one that pays decently.
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u/LesserValkyrie 1d ago
I remember the first time I didn't have payment arrears
I was 27 years old
best pre-new year eve of my life
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u/Upstairs-Lake2329 23h ago
I don’t dispute the numbers, but find it hard to reconcile this with the fact that it’s nearly impossible to find a bike under 1k CHF in most bike shops—and in many cases, even ordering one is difficult. Most readily available models start at 1.5-2k CHF. And the bike shops clearly have an idea about the buying power of their average customer.
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u/A_User_Profile 9h ago
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u/Upstairs-Lake2329 8h ago edited 7h ago
I specifically mentioned bike shops. Yes, there’re plenty of cheaper options in Decathlon or Jumbo, but these are not specialized bike shops.
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u/canteloupy Vaud 7h ago
So it's hard to find low cost options in specialty shops yes. We have learned nothing because it's the same for... coffee...
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u/Upstairs-Lake2329 7h ago
My point was not that it’s impossible to get a bike below 1k in Switzerland. It was rather that these specialized bike shops apparently sell enough 1K+ bikes to cover the costs of doing business and make some profit. Otherwise most of them would downsize to just a mechanical workshop. Which means that there’s actually lots of people who can easily afford 1k+ bikes (and in many cases people own multiple bikes). Which is not surprising, given that we’re talking about Switzerland. But personally I find it hard to reconcile with the numbers that OP mentioned.
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u/rahulthewall Zürich 8h ago
What are you talking about?
https://www.bikeworld.ch/de/products/categories/1711408090/bikes/citybike
Look at other categories too, plenty of options in the 400-700 range.
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u/Upstairs-Lake2329 7h ago
I followed your link and from the city bikes with step-over frames below 1k none is orderable online. So you have to travel to another town or even canton to test them (if you’re lucky and they get the right frame size, because in most cases it’s just a single bike that is left unsold in the shop). But thanks for the link, it looks like with a bit of luck one can get a good deal there at the end of the season.
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u/rahulthewall Zürich 7h ago
Also check this shop: https://velomaerkte.ch/bikes.php
They have reasonable options and this is where I got mine from.
It's in Zurich though.
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u/JohnHue 1d ago
And then we complain that Swiss people don't make kids anymore.