Will the corona pandemic affect the design of welfare?
This is the opinion of Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson (S), who in an interview with Dagens Nyheter just before Christmas claimed that the pandemic will lead to a paradigm shift in the view of public activities.
According to the Minister of Finance, the demand for common solutions will increase and the corona crisis will lead to fewer privatizations and market solutions in welfare.
This is a view not shared by the political opposition.
And hardly by the government's coalition parties, the Center Party and the Liberals.
Because in the January agreement that regulates the cooperation between the government and C and L, it is agreed not to restrict private companies' opportunities to conduct activities within welfare.
Quality requirements must be governing:
“The individual's freedom of choice is a central part of the Swedish welfare model.
Therefore, a diversity of actors and good conditions are needed for individually run activities within welfare that facilitate the individual's active choices.
The Government will not pursue or continue to work on proposals for a ban on profits or other proposals with the aim of introducing profit restrictions for private actors in welfare ... ”
And another point in the agreement explicitly talks about health care and elderly care:
"Competitive neutrality must prevail between public and independent care providers, both in terms of financial conditions, a functioning licensing, and quality requirements."
The fact that both private and public providers are responsible for school, care and nursing has become more common in Sweden in the last decade.
This applies to both municipalities and regions.
160 municipalities have introduced the Freedom of Choice System Act (LOV), which entails free establishment of private providers and free choice for users, patients or students.
Every fifth place in the country's nursing homes is today in private companies.
And 17 percent of all hours in the home care service are performed privately.
This according to statistics from the National Board of Health and Welfare that apply for 2019.
Almost every other visit to primary care, ie health centers, youth clinics, maternity care centers, etc., takes place at a private care provider.
This is stated by SKR, Sweden's municipalities and regions:
Primary care in private care 2019
Doctors: 44%
Other occupational groups: 49%
Total primary care: 47%
In its first interim report this autumn, the State Corona Commission presented harsh criticism of the shortcomings in elderly care that emerged during the pandemic.
Among other things, the coordination between the regions responsible for health care and the municipalities that provide care was criticized.
Agenda went to Huddinge municipality, south of Stockholm.
There is a political tug-of-war over the municipal home service, which today constitutes 60 percent of all home services in the municipality.
A majority in the health and care committee, led by the Christian Democrats, has decided to completely close down the publicly run home care service and replace it with private providers.
The decision has met with fierce protests and been appealed to court.
Recently, the administrative court decided to revoke the board's decision on the grounds that such a radical change should be decided by the municipal council and not an individual board.
The municipality is now considering whether to appeal that ruling.
In our studio to discuss this are Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson (S) and the Moderates' economic-political spokesperson Elisabeth Svantesson (M).
We wonder if there are fundamental, ideological differences between the Social Democrats and the Moderates in the view of the role of the public and the private sector in future welfare.