A Bit of Sicko in the Swedish Healthcare System

Johanna Graf is always so spot on! I agree with her completely so I have translated her post:

"Unfortunately I have to throw up...
...because this is one of the most tasteless things I have heard. A private children's hospital is opening at Sophiahemmet in Stockholm [where] children of parents who have paid into a private child insurance can receive care. In a web survey carried out by [the tabloid] Aftonbladet it is admittedly a majority who thinks it is wrong with privately financed [through insurance] children's healthcare, but alarmingly many who still think it is a good idea. Maybe they have fallen for the insidious talk that is always brought out when private care is the topic; "But, if more people pay for their care themselves, the pressure on the public health service will be relieved and it can work better".

But think one step further! What do you think happens to the private caretakers' willingness to pay for care they no longer need, or need less and less often? What happens with the strength of a tax system where some, often those who are less willing to pay, do not think that the quality of the service that they are getting for their money is good enough, och therefore join another [health] insurance system?

In the particular case with private children's hospitals one can also quietly ask oneself what will happen with children who are born sick and in all likelihood have not yet been - or would never be - granted a private insurance?

This with private children's insurances is already today a chapter to itself. My middle son gave the wrong answer during a hearing test at the children's health centre and is still to this day, at age 16, not granted a full child insurance with our insurance company. And I have heard a lot worse stories. NO to such a society!

In the long term one could ask why all of us together must pay for their expensive medical training if many doctors only devote themselves to help those who pay the most for their services?

To be very clear, so that no one goes mad now: What I'm criticising is NOT private care, but private insurances. (It is the same thing with the education system: It is not the free-standing schools that is the problem, it is the financing system that moves tax money around in an eternal moving merry-go-around that is very financially unsound.)

It makes me happy that it is not only Social Democrats who criticise these systems. Also the Swedish Association of Health Professionals is a warning voice: "The risk is that the cleavages in society increase, that those who cannot afford to pay receive worse care and that the public health service cannot be financed at the same level as today."

Less that three years to the election, but there are unfortunately a lot that can be destroyed before then."

New Times

The Social Democrats selected their new leader this past weekend, the first woman chair in its history. Eric Sundström has written very well about Mona Sahlin here. Let's hope she becomes Sweden's first female Prime Minister (yes, for some peculiar reason we haven't had a woman leader yet) in 2010! We also said goodbye to Göran Persson after almost eleven years at the post (and as prime minister for over ten).

They Did It My Way (Not)

Well, you have probably heard that it didn't go my way in the election. Eric Sundström gives an excellent analysis of why the Social Democrats lost, looking for answers both in the opposition's strategies but also within the party itself.

Vote Social Democrat!

Tomorrow 17 September is the Swedish general election (local, regional and national). I will vote for the Social Democratic party; to give them a new mandate for the next four years. Here's a list of blogs telling you why:

Eric Sundström
Tora Hansjons
Jonas Morian
Nisha & Krister
Nina Unesi LO
Bäst i världen
Motallians
Skolfröken