Healthcare consists of roughly one-tenth of Sweden’s GDP. The current government wants to increase privatization and strengthen competition within healthcare. The Red-Green alliance is mainly opposed to this. Explain your differing views!
The Moderate Party and the Alliance government want high quality tax-financed healthcare that is the same for everyone and is guided by need. The focus should always be on the patient, and we want to make good use of employees’ commitment and skills. Thus there are no differing views between us and The Red-Green alliance in terms of financing healthcare.
However, the existing Alliance government wants to continue strengthening the freedom to choose for everyone in Sweden. Being able to choose which doctor or healthcare center to go to gives people more influence over their own situation. This also creates a sense of involvement and makes all of us more committed when it comes to welfare issues. Our goal is healthcare that gives us security, with a high level of quality and good availability.
It is also important to give healthcare employees more influence over their own work. Employees often have ideas about how to improve their situation and what improvements – both big and small – could be made. But most people find it hard to get someone higher up in the organization to listen to them. Too many good ideas have been lost within an excessively rigid bureaucracy. Short decision paths and an accessible manager should be natural features within healthcare.
Important goals for the coming four years must include to continue shorten healthcare waiting lists. Sweden is world famous for high quality healthcare and highly skilled employees – but has one of the longest waiting lists in the European Union for surgeries and doctor visits. Earlier Social Democratic governments became well known for bureaucracy, long waiting lists and less diversity – with only one way to provide health care, no matter what individual patient needs were.
