"At the start of 2024, the reimbursement for patients was increased from eight euros to 30 euros per visit. The goal was to shorten queues in public health care by encouraging more people to choose a private provider.
Now, nearly three times as much tax money is being spent on the subsidies as before, yet the number of visits has risen by only about two percent, according to Kela data
Mika Kortelainen, professor of health economics at the University of Turku and a researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), said that based on the numbers, the subsidy reform appears to have failed.
"The beneficiaries seem to be those who would have visited a private doctor anyway, even with lower reimbursements."
by FinnishAlien
9 comments
Interesting this is getting down voted. I am curious as to if those downvoting have something to say or refute this. Genuinely curious as this suggests that it is playing out how I would have predicted…
Happy to be wrong and have better more affordable healthcare for all.
It was obviously going to go exactly like this.
Ah, so the thing everyone knew would happen and told the administration would happen happened. Would you look at that.
Who could’ve guessed that Kokoomus makes politics which benefits the private healthcare companies, but not the common people?
Shocking. Absolutely shocking. Who could’ve seen this coming (literally everyone).
Bad article. It’s just cherry picking to create a reaction.
What should be quoted is this:
‘Kela research professor Hennamari Mikkola noted that part of the subsidy increases has ultimately gone to private medical companies, which raised their prices at the time of the reform.’
That would be an actual problem and it’s a classic corporate problem. Then again what is the actual official inflation. Can we trust that it is measured correctly or is does some shrinkflation(smaller packs and lower quality) in goods hide the actual inflation.
Quoting things like ‘nearly 3 times as much tax money spent’ is just ment to agitate potential blind readers. It sounds outrageous. Yet it isn’t. Because if the reform was ‘a success’ the number would be e.g. 6 times as much or more…
And the article measures a 2.3% increase in overall private healthcare visits. Well wow. We now have two random numbers put together that tell us nearly nothing.
What’s the numbers for the public sector in comparison? Rise or fall? How does this 2.3% tell us anything about impact on public sector? What was the overall health situation in the country? Could it be that maybe some percentage was able to still go to private sector namely because of the reform?
Just another gimmick how to transfer public cash into private hands.. nothing to see here
Perhaps it’s time to go back to the basics as it was before this arrangement was made to cut down cost. Perhaps it should be private clinics bidding for government service contracts to boost competition.
If I didn’t have private health care through my occupational health insurance, I would never go to private. Who the hell can afford 200 eur for a 30 min visit and only get back 30 eur in this economy?
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