The HS went through the regional election programs of the parliamentary parties. They promise brisk improvements to SOTE services but do not say at all how they will be financed, writes Teemu Muhonen, HS’s policy reporter.
parties regional election programs give voters an unrealistic picture of the situation in future welfare areas.
The HS went through the regional election programs of all nine parliamentary parties. They have one longer list of improvement proposals for sote services. However, the programs do not contain any concrete proposals on how the improvements will be financed.
It is illustrative that the word ‘euro’ is not mentioned at all in seven programs. The euro is mentioned twice in the Basic Finns program and once in the Liike Nyt program when describing the current cost situation. No party forks the price of any of its proposals for improvement in any way.
Electoral programs typically focus on everyday improvements that please voters. However, for example, parliament and municipalities have the opportunity to raise taxes or take on additional debt to finance promises. Welfare areas do not have these opportunities. The regions receive almost all of their funding from the state, so they have to make do with the amount of money allocated by the state.
Instead of improvement lists, many aging areas will struggle to keep services even at current levels. The preparation of cutting lists may also be ahead. In fact, in the future, the state will reimburse the regions only 80% of the costs arising from the increase in the need for services.
This is not conveyed at all in the parties’ programs, although the parties are naturally familiar with the financial situation.
Perhaps the greenest in its program goes green. Even cautiously, the party is proposing more than thirty cost increases. These include raising wages in the care sector, increasing the number of doctors, new family centers, free contraception, increasing mental health services, and so on.
The price of the program would inevitably be in the billions of euros a year. The party itself has no estimate of the cost implications.
The Greens summarize the funding of their program as follows:
“Chasing quick profits and short-sighted cuts will, at worst, lead to higher costs and deeper nausea. Instead, investing in well-being, preventing problems and improving productivity will bring savings and keep costs under control in the longer term. ”
Even if one believed that large additional investments would lead to a reduction in costs, the elected regional commissioners would not be able to make such a choice if they so wished. They have at their disposal only the amount of money that the welfare state receives from the state.
The areas for improvement and sources of income presented by the Greens are summarized below. Similar compilations from other parties ’programs are at the end of the story.
Long improvement lists can also be found in the programs of the SDP, the Left Alliance, the RDP and the Christian Democrats. They all call for, among other things, improved wages in the social services sector and that local services not be compromised.
Parties also call for mobile services and development, but at least no party openly sees them as an alternative to local services.
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Party programs provide voters with exceptionally little information for a voting decision.
The center states directly in its program that each municipality must have at least one social and health center. The RKP also states that existing health centers should not be closed down.
There are fewer improvement proposals in the programs of the Center Party, the Coalition Party, the Basic Finns and Liike Nyt than in the programs of other parties. There are still few savings targets in their programs either.
“Decision-making requires decision-makers who are able to reform their policies in order to achieve more and better with a limited amount of money,” the Coalition’s program says on the revenue side.
Several parties also talk circularly about the need to get savings from the administration and the money to be spent on care. There is also support, for example, for increasing remote reception.
The basic Finns actually present the only concrete savings target in the regional election programs. The party demands that welfare areas should not offer the same level of health services to illegal immigrants in Finland as to those who have a home municipality in Finland.
The cost impact is not very large. The Association of Finnish Municipalities last summer statement According to the municipality, about 700–1,100 people who received a negative asylum decision used municipal services in 2019–2020.
Regional election programs one cannot even expect to have comprehensive representations on how the economy of welfare areas is managed. The situations in the regions differ and there is as yet no practical experience of a new level of government.
In any case, party programs provide voters with exceptionally little information for a voting decision. The programs do not even prioritize what spending items the parties would focus on. Instead, several programs promise something for everyone.
When parties in the choir promise more and better services at lower fees, it can be difficult to separate their lines.
Read more: The HS voting machine has been opened: In this case, we will go through the national issues one by one
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