In Thursday’s “Debate” on NRK, the topic of private health insurance is debated.
There has been explosive growth in private health insurance in Norway. Today, over 800,000 people in Norway have private health insurance, while 20 years ago the number was under 100,000.
Grilled about previous private insurance
Last week it was announced that Jan Christian Vestre (Ap) was to take over as the new health minister, after Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) had to resign as a result of her being caught cheating on her master’s thesis.
On Monday, TV 2 could tell that Health Minister Vestre entered into an agreement on private health insurance for his employees when he was general manager of the family company.
Gunnar Stavrum: Jan Christian Vestre has nothing to be ashamed of
– Should people do as you say, or as you do? asked Fredrik Solvang.
– People must make the choices they believe are right in their lives. Then we must ensure that the welfare state works. I have no intention of swinging a whip, replied Vestre.
– I am the Minister of Health and Care and I work for our joint health service. Of course, I stand for the policy pursued by both my party and the government, he continued.
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Give advice to Vestre
– The biggest challenge going forward will be to ensure that we have enough professionals in the healthcare system. There won’t be more professionals if we privatize more. There will be exactly the same number of people who can do the job. We must not believe that privatization in itself contributes to better capacity or reduced waiting times, said Vestre.
Mariann Hussein, deputy leader of SV, said that there would like to be fewer Norwegians with health insurance.
– We would have liked to have been without so many Norwegians having health insurance, because it is a symptom that people are not confident that they will get the necessary health care when they need it. They do not trust our welfare state. Therefore, we have to address this, said Hussein, who added that the pandemic also has something to say about how things look now.
Storting representative Tone Trøen (H) believes that people must be allowed to buy help.
– But I wish we could get rid of it, because I think we should have a public health service that is able to deliver quick health services to people who need it. I believe that the most important thing we can do is to reduce the waiting time, because then you will increase people’s trust.
Trøen then gave some advice to Vestre.
– I have some concrete advice for the new health minister, because this must be addressed. On the Labor Party’s watch, there are now 250,000 people in the health care queue. In the last two years, the queue has increased by 35,000. The last time SV was in government, the purchase of private health insurance increased by 400%. This means that we need to have parties that actually manage to reduce the waiting times as we did.
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Long health queues
The long health queues were a central topic that was raised during the debate.
– We have to prioritize in the public sector, and that priority must also include the right wing and say something about what they want, instead of pretending that we can only bake the cake bigger, said SV-Hussein.
– The biggest challenge is 250,000 people who are waiting for absolutely necessary health care – health care that they are given priority to receive in our health system. Therefore, we must ensure that they get quick help, said Høyre-Trøen.
Vestre replied to Trøen that we must not scare people.
– Last year there were 2.1 million treatments in our hospitals. Everyone in Norway who needs urgent help and is seriously ill gets it. We mustn’t scare people!
– Then we will reduce the waiting times. Then we must also work with private companies, but it must be publicly financed, publicly regulated, publicly prioritized. Then we ensure equality for everyone in Norway. It is worthy of our welfare state, he said further.
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