March 24, 2010

Time changes quickly and now spring is finally here! Zürich had a superb day with sun and 20°C. What could be better than a picnic at my favorite place by the Limmat, I will not tell you exactly where it is those because one of its charms is that there are not so many people there.

Barack Obama finally managed to get his health care reform through the congress. From a European perspective it is difficult to understand why it was so hard to get the proposition accepted. For us the access to health care is a fundamental right that could never be questioned and this new reform still doesn't include all Americans, just 95% of them. Why are all the republicans against this solidarity towards the weaker? They want people to have the freedom to chose for themselves but to chose whether to have a health insurance or to feed your family is not a real freedom. Another crazy issue that is now being resolved is that chronically ill people now cannot be denied a health insurance. All that I can say about this is: Congratulations Americans, you have won more than you might realize! Just a shame that Obama had to negotiate with the pro-life people to get it through but sometimes you have to make compromises for the common good.

In Switzerland the new vision for the railway system, Bahn 2030, was presented. More and longer trains are planned to cope with the increasing number of passengers. The Swiss railway system is really magnificent and must be one of the best in the world and they are continuously working on improving it. However, the cost of the improvements will of course be taken from the passengers so let's hope that the increased cost is not big enough to discourage people from taking the train. For a family taking the train is already a real luxury and if the goal is to reduce the car traffic and pollution rising the prices will go in exactly the opposite direction.

Sweden has a lot of things to learn from Switzerland on this matter. During the winter months the railways have been a disaster, I think I heard somewhere that about 30% of all the trains were canceled. It is incredibly embarrassing for a country where the snow and cold doesn't exactly come as a surprise.