Finland: Government Collapses Over Universal Health Care Costs, #Bernie2020 Hardest Hit
“Similar problems are bedeviling Sweden and Denmark, two other countries frequently held up as models to follow on health care”
Finland has long been touted by American socialists as the socialist Nirvana, where everything is free and everyone is happy, happy, happy. Sadly, fiscal reality hit Finland’s government as it collapsed Friday due to the rising costs of its universal health care.
The warning signs were on the wall last spring when Finland, as Leslie noted, ended its experiment with “universal basic income.”
Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has been hanging his socialist mantle on the “success” of Finland’s socialist structure, may be the hardest hit.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
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.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila and the rest of the cabinet resigned after the governing coalition failed to pass reforms in parliament to the country’s regional government and health services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Finland faces an aging population, with around 26 percent of its citizens expected to be over 65 by the year 2030, an increase of 5 percent from today.
It’s not just Finland experiencing such problems with its socialist policies. Other Nordic countries, also touted by American socialists and communists as the model America should follow, are suffering similar economic burdens directly related to their socialist policies.
The Washington Free Beacon continues:
Reuters reports that soaring treatment costs and longer life spans have particularly affected Nordic countries.
“Nordic countries, where comprehensive welfare is the cornerstone of the social model, have been among the most affected,” according to Reuters. “But reform has been controversial and, in Finland, plans to cut costs and boost efficiency have stalled for years.”
Similar problems are bedeviling Sweden and Denmark, two other countries frequently held up as models to follow on health care. Finland’s crisis in particular comes as calls for universal health care have grown louder among Democrats in the United States.
Just a few days before Finland’s government collapsed over its inability to foot the bill for its expansive socialist experiment, Sanders took to Twitter in an attempt to shame America.
Indeed, Finland has long been a Bernie go-to for the glories of socialism. Last year, he enthusiastically gushed over Finland being the “happiest place in the world” because of all its “free” stuff.
With the collapse of Finland’s government over its inability to financially support its massive socialist agenda, Bernie will undoubtedly do the same thing he always does when socialism (or communism) fails: ignore, obfuscate, and deflect.
After all, for all his big, shiny promises of “free” everything for everyone, he still refuses to address how this largess will be paid for.
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Comments
What was the proposed reform that failed? The current government is, for them, the right-wing parties. This is more likely to result in a SocialDemocrat/Green coalition takover to tax their way back to solvency.
A Capitalist country with Socialist programs. Easy to do when you don’t need to spend 100s of billions on defense because someone else is doing it for you. Maybe all those immigrants have been adding to the burden and the bubble has finally burst.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They didn’t do it right.
But Comrade Bernie is smarter. You just have to trust him.
He will do it right this time if you give him the chance.
/sarc
Just keep his wife’s paws off the government checkbook. Lookit the trouble it caused diBlasio…
the College in Maine was bankrupted by Mrs Sanders when she was in charge.
That would be the college in Vermont,not Maine,unless she been busier than we know of.
Jane Sanders Sends Burlington College into Bankruptcy
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2017/07/21/unraveling-jane-sanders-burlington-college-legacy/486054001/
Thanks for the link.
From that article:
“Five years after Jane Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders, left as president — after significant board turnover and three college presidents — Burlington College, and her vision, collapsed under “the crushing weight of debt.”
“Burlington College’s accreditation was placed on suspension for financial reasons….”
But,but,but,the Burnmeister will do Socialism different and do it right,unlike all the other times it been tried and Failed around the globe.
Bernie’s been drinking and eating that red Finnish snow, not realizing that the red color comes from bleeding government deficits. Coulda been worse–coulda been “yellow snow”.
At least the Finnish government collapsed while the electricity still worked–so they are one up on Venezuela.
Why not just kill off older Finnish people? Abortion is already killing off millions of babies, why not just extend the time limit to abort? (Snark off, hoping no govt official sees this post and decides it’s another good idea)
They’ll get around to it. The Netherlands has been “practicing” involuntary euthanasia for years.
Label it “fulfillMent of life” age.
Fulfillment …. (IPad problem…)
I’ve had a recurring dream of winding up in a restaurant ..by mistake…serving an ordered last meal to a bunch of unknowing senior citizens.
Bet they even have a very pretty carousel for them to ride out…..
Carousel Death Ritual From Logan’s Run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSnLU9nyFSA
Doesn’t matter. The progs will continue to lie and their moronic drones will lap up whatever they spew forth.
Perfect timing for the 2020 election! I think God is watching.
Finland can solve its health cost problems… Cut treatment options and steer toward decreased life span. Think of the savings if life expectancy is 40! Or peg it at 30 and go Carousel.
In Canada healthcare is a provincial matter. I don’t know the situation in most areas but in Ontario where I live, governments of all parties have periodically been cutting treatments from their coverage since 1992 to try and control costs. When Bernie came to study our system a couple of years ago, they probably didn’t mention that.
Like all socialists, Bernie Sanders is an idiot and a liar. If the “cost” of having a baby in Finland is only $60 then the doctors and nurses and others involved would be working for slave wages. Bernie is lying because he is not talking about the true or total cost of having a baby in Finland. Bernie is hiding the fact that the government is paying the majority of the cost and thinks that government spending does not count since it is “free” or other people’s money.
Socialists love to intentionally confuse the “price” of something and its “cost”. They can control the price as much as they want, with subsidies, taxes, regulations and all their other “tools”.
But they can’t lower the cost of anything. Truly reducing the cost of something requires innovation. Innovation comes from makers, not from takers. Scratch a socialist and you find a cannibal — the ultimate taker — under the surface.
We conservatives need to stop letting leftists say “cost” when they mean “price”.
Hmm. Maybe cannibalism is a good way to illustrate the difference between the “price” of food and the “cost” of food.
Thank you!
As soon as you allow your opponent to define the meaning of a word, you’ve lost the argument/debate.
the actual cost of having a baby in finland is $60 + a high tax burden.
if one wants to compare costs for a service, it’s dishonest to include only part of the cost..
So that probably makes the cost of having a baby in Finland about $6 Million……
Deport Bernie to Finland.
There is and always will be rationing of healthcare. The question is who do you prefer to do the rationing? Yourself or someone else for you?
Why do you hate Finland, Jack?
Point taken. My apologies to the Finns.
“In Finland it costs $60 [to have a baby].”
This is such socialist thinking–to gloss over how much it really costs, and how much of that bill is being passed to the taxpayer. Just gotta sell your BS to the idiots who will believe it. Somehow you’ll pay for it all later.
This is bullshit. The government resignated because their reforms were against the constitutional law and the elections are soon and they cant complete their reform ideas. Horrible propaganda. This has nothing to do with health care costs.
Hello guys, Toni from Finland checking in. We will gladly take Bernie here, would love to listen to his thoughts.
We are doing just fine here, no government collapse, and I am currently enjoying free university and being completely taken care financially by our government.
Oh, and beware of the fake news, people!
p.s I’m definitely linking this to the news outlets for the shits and giggles.
Wow, Americans pretending to be Fins to spread lies is just sad. You don’t care about your people. Healthcare in Finland has gotten very bad. You can’t schedule to see physician for months. Can’t get the right medicines. Wait for hours at hospital. They resigned before they got tossed. You liars!
Did you people know that Finnland is not a socialist country?
I am not a socialist or communist but we must take insurance companies out of our healthcare. I don’t have the answer I just know what the problem is.
Then lets send “comrade Bernie” over to Finland to “fix” their problem. ONE WAY TICKET.
Like the Iron lady said “Eventually you run out of other peoples money”
Oh god, what disinformation. I’m from Finland and therefore I happen to follow these things quite closely. Our government did resign due to major problems and costs with the REFORM of our health care system. Our government was trying to privatize the health care which would have made it too costly for those with the lower in-come and it turned out that the huge privatizing they were planning for was actually against our constitutional law. So you’ve got it all wrong, again. The problem wasn’t the high cost of free health care but quite the opposite: the plans (and the very high cost of said planning) to make people pay a lot more for their health care and basically change our health care to be more like yours, which creates inequality and therefore is against our constitutional law. Hopefully people read this comment and/or read from Finnish or any reliable news medias to get the right idea rather than these capitalist lies.
Do you guys consider it an inequality when someone works their arses off and another decides he’s fine with living off the labor of others? Shouldn’t everybody be expected to contribute toward the collective.
By mistake I hit the thumbs up instead of the thumbs down on your comment, and now I can’t change it. The reason I want to give it a thumbs down is your implication that many people who cannot afford to pay for their own health care are lazy and want to live off the labor of others. I think that only a very few people are like that. Many people here in the U.S. who work two, three, or more jobs cannot afford health care. For some reason that I don’t understand, conservatives nearly always assume that poor people are responsible for their own poverty (some are, but that is not the general rule) and resent government programs to help them while they think rich people are deserving of their riches (some are, but many are not) and are perfectly willing to help make them even richer through tax cuts and other policies that favor the rich. In other words, conservatives resent paying for welfare for the poor, who actually need it, but not for the rich, who do not need it.
Thank you, prinkero, for setting the record straight. I could tell from the loaded language of this piece and the rightwing bias of the blog that its explanation of the situation was dubious. In checking objective sources, I found that your explanation is accurate. This is not a failure of a democratic socialist policy; it is a failure of a rightwing capitalistic effort to realign the system for the benefit of private companies and their profits.
Finland’s socialist-model programs collapse: Democrats and minorities hit hardest.
BUT we’re *smarter* than the people who put it in place in Finland and WE can make it work, no matter what the data shows!
We’re smart. Just ask us.
They won’t learn anything because they think they know everything or can “feel” what’s right.
Because feelings…nothing more than feelings…
Stupid is Stupid does. Is that you?
Given a choice, to whom you pay your health insurance premium to is not rocket science.
Note that health insurance companies by law were once “nonprofits” until Mr. Kaiser got to President Nixon in the 70’s. Consequently, every year under our current for-profit system premiums, deductibles, limits and caps have caused tens of thousands of people go bankrupt and/or continue to be ill and/or die. Or,…we can get rid of the corrupt middleman (the greedy insurance companies) and 30% (+/-) of your current premium will no longer go to the billions to payoff politicians or pay lobbyist, CEO’s, nor to shareholders who could care less if your family member dies. Note that insurance is based on the law of large numbers to disburse the risk and lower the premiums. Medicare for All includes our entire population and cuts out the middleman. Again, not rocket science. If we are smart, we will all come together and eliminate the greedy middleman, and DO IT OURSELVES. Note that some human needs and services are not up for grabs by the free market, like our police/fire departments, our military, post office, etc. AND neither is the administration of our health insurance program (doctors and hospitals remain private in the free market to compete for our business thus retain quality of service). The insurance companies had their chance,…GAME OVER!!! We can do it ourselves. FYI, the Medicare for All candidates are also for open primaries and campaign finance reform as the first step to get money out of politics. Also note that government corporate welfare is hundreds of times costlier that public welfare fraud. Together we can reduce both. Lastly, democracy means the majority, and social means the people, henceforth, Democrat Socialist, NOT socialism nor communism. Now, let’s go pound the crap out of those political whores in congress, both parties, who are taking money from big Pharma and the medical industry (none of that money is going to you is it).
Well said!
They just didn’t do it quite right…………..or give it enough time……………or something.