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Finnish Government Collapses Due to Rising Cost of Universal Health Care

posted 6 years ago by Satan2016 (25525)
12 replies | jump to latest

Strike another country from the list of "Medicare for all" successes.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/finnish-government-collapses-due-to-rising-cost-of-universal-health-care/
Finland's government resigns over failed healthcare reform https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47496326

The government of Finland collapsed Friday due to the rising cost of universal health care and the prime minister's failure to enact reforms to the system.

Sipila said "there's no other way for Finland to succeed" besides these reforms, which could have led to $3.4 billion in savings for the government.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I., Vt.) "Medicare for all" proposal would cost the U.S. over $32 trillion over ten years, according to an analysis by the Mercatus Center. It would also require enormous tax increases as "a doubling of all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan."

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 58 percent of Americans oppose "Medicare for all" if told it would eliminate private health insurance plans, and 60 percent oppose it if it requires higher taxes.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

That should read "Finland's most right-wing government in ages failed to gut and privatize ('reform') Finland's universal healthcare system".

Their most Right-Wing government in ages failed to pass legislation directing public funding into their tiny private healthcare sectour which would undercut their National Health Insurance system and also allow their tiny private healthcare sectour to channel profits into offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.

Finland's health care system is among best in the world: "In Finland we have reached the best and most effective health care system that humanity has ever seen. No other country [offers] such a high level of quality, efficiency and fairness of care for the same amount of money," Lindén said in a statement on the study's findings.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/study_finlands_health_care_system_among_best_in_the_world/10276968

I don't care how many trillions of dollars are needed for free healthcare for all American citizens (and for everybody else living on US soil and US territories and abroad, all the legal non-citizens and undocumented citizens alike) because you don't care about how many trillions of dollars have already long been wasted on military/defense spending and fossil fuel subsidies, I don't care how many trillions are needed to fund Life because you don't care how much has been spent and is still being spent to fund Death/destroy Life.

But incidentally, the US already spends more than $3.2 trillion a year on health care and the cost constantly increases which means the US will spend at least $32 trillion in 10 years (the cms growth estimate would hit $49 trillion in 10 years) which means converting to a "free health care for everybody" system would cost either the same as Mercatus Center estimates or less because conversion includes consolidation+merging which means less spendings and more savings.
https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet.html

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Also incidentally, Republicans love consolidations and merging because both cut costs and reduce spending and reduce government oversight and reduce the size of the federal workforce, Republicans should be supporting all the Democratic Healthcare-For-All plans.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Yep....

[–] modica (4169) 6 years ago

I agree. The system in the US does not work. More money for less care. I am tired of fighting with insurance companies and it will only get worse if something is not done.

[–] ctwdidswej (212) 6 years ago

But that's the same system every western country has (except England, which is denying service to obese people to save money). They all make you buy insurance from private companies. The difference between America and other countries is not the system. It's the definition of health care, and it's the health of the population. Americans just aren't as healthy as Europeans. We consume way more healthcare than any other country, because of how sick we are. We also require insurance to cover all sorts of boondoggles like drug addiction, AIDS, psychotherapy, etc... These are not catastrophic "dying in the streets" issues. Our health care is more expensive because we force everyone to pay for much more comprehensive care than in Europe. Canada doesn't even cover pharmaceuticals. That's actually part of the reason they are cheaper there, same reason advancing tech like LASIK eye surgery comes down in price in America while age old Insulin goes up in price. America has terrible intellectual property laws.

America's health care wasn't always socialized and it wasn't always expensive. We have been moving steadily in the wrong direction.

[–] ctwdidswej (212) 6 years ago

Why do you want one giant health care provider with no competition to keep them honest?

[–] modica (4169) 6 years ago

They screw us now and there is supposedly competition. The only people who are for this system are politicians and people who have great insurance. The rest of us are getting shit on by insurance companies. It has to stop.

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 6 years ago

It's not one provider. Government doesn't get into health care delivery. They become everyone's "insurance". Everything else at the hospital and the doctor's office stays the same - except the billing department. The staff doesn't suddenly become federal employees, the government is not running things. Our Medicare for All system (whatever the agency ends up being called) just pays the doctor like an insurance company does now. That's it.

[–] NiggardlyChigger (99) 6 years ago

Why do you want one giant health care insurer with no competition to keep them honest?

Way to avoid the issue. I don't understand why you would so blatantly undercut your own argument. If you want to eliminate competition for insurance, then logically you want to eliminate competition for providers as well. Why don't you want doctors to be government employees?

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 6 years ago

This is not actually eliminating competition for insurance. It eliminates the role of insurance entirely. The insurance companies are a needless middle man whose only function is to siphon off massive amounts of money from the health care system. Why not cut them out?

With a few exceptions, like dialysis centers, hospitals are well run and efficient. Why screw with the things in our system that DO work? Despite all the right wing trash talk, supporters of single payer are simply for getting rid of the billionaire profiteers - not actually facilitating a government takeover or making the United States into a communist country.

Take the way telecom works in parts of Europe. The government builds the networks and providers pay them a fee to offer their services through them. Consumers get to choose from a wider selection of providers, and pay about a third as much as US customers for better service. Note that I didn't say ALL of Europe works like this. Portugal for instance is a total clusterf*ck of corporate price gouging and screwing over of consumers. But socialized solutions work well for some things, and market solutions work well for others. Instead of being ideologically wedded to one approach (and fanatically against the other) why not go with the combination that works best?

Better to have taxpayers contribute into a central fund which then pays the doctors and hospitals. Nearly all of it will go straight to health care delivery - that's the key difference between single payer and an insurance based system. No denial of claims, setting up complicated hoops to jump through and refusing payment whenever possible, or giving greedy corporate money people HUGE salaries and bonuses. Sometimes the profit motive is incredibly destructive to the function of a basic service. When that happens, you need to eliminate it. Capitalism is not The One True Answer to Everything. And saying so doesn't make you a Marxist rebel either, just a realist. Expect a huge amount of resistance from the empire of greed that is health insurance and big pharma though. They will spread all the lies and misinformation they possibly can, and pay out huge bribes to members of Congress, all in a desperate attempt to preserve their lucrative status quo.

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 6 years ago

The government of Finland's "collapse" simply means that the prime minister resigned in frustration over his inability to get the agenda through. The ruling coalition fell apart. That's all. His country's government didn't actually collapse or go bankrupt as you seem to be implying. Finland's health care system is set up in a strange way, with individual localities organizing themselves independently, which is highly inefficient and incurs additional costs.

By the way those numbers you quoted (the $32 trillion and so forth) all came out of the Mercatus Center - which was founded by, and receives its funding from, the Koch Family Foundations. The Koch Brothers. And what a shock: the numbers are pure BS!

In reality Medicare for All would actually save - not cost - at least $2 trillion over the next decade alone. If Finland's system could use to be more efficient OUR system is a model of epic inefficiency. We spend twice as much as most industrialized countries per person and we get crappy coverage for it.

When people have it explained to them that Medicare for All is totally comprehensive, like the insurance only rich people can afford now, and that the taxes they pay will amount to far less than is currently taken out of their paychecks for employer based coverage (i.e. they will actually have more money in their pockets) any objections to the idea tend to evaporate. Plus, unlike Obama's promise that everyone could keep their doctor, here you actually can. No more in-network, out-of-network, there's only one network and everyone's in it. You will never have to worry about switching plans and being forced to find a new primary care doctor because your current one doesn't take the new insurance. You can go to anyone you want.

It's mostly a matter of Democrats doing a good enough job messaging - and debunking the lies spread by a desperate industry that doesn't want to see their gravy train reach the end of the line.

[–] NiggardlyChigger (99) 6 years ago

Democrats are the ones who gave us Obamacare. They're in bed with the insurance industry.

The reason Findland and other countries are cutting back is because people are too sick to have comprehensive coverage. Health care doesn't seem to be making anyone healthier. If you look at obesity cancer and other disease rates, they're only going up. Covering more people for more things won't make it cheaper. It just allows Big Pharma to set their own prices because now someone else is paying for it.

Medicare already only reimburses you for between 50% and 70%. That's not comprehensive. That's just a two tiered system like our garbage public schools where people end up forced to spend outrageous amounts of money for private on top of the $30,000 per student per year that we spend in our worst performing cities. When you say it will be comprehensive, what you mean is that Medicare will cover AIDS and drug rehab and psychotherapy and all sorts of other politically correct boondoggles that most people aren't at risk for. People used to be allowed to buy catastrophic-only coverage, for cheap. Your idea of comprehensive is just criminal to me. It covers all that crap but not laser eye surgery or gym memberships, vitamins, etc... I have to buy all that stuff to stay healthy, and then I'm supposed to pay for you too because you listened to government and ate the food pyramid. No thanks.