Vive la Suède!
The Handsome Swede suggested that my entry for this week should delve into my expectations of my new life in Sweden. I can't say for sure, but I suspect that he suggested this because he thinks that my expectations are, in a word, grandiose.
He probably has a devilish scheme to draw me out through flattery, luring me into innocently prattling on about Sweden, thus exposing my streets-are-paved-with-gold social theories, so that in a year's time he can sit me down in front of this entry and force me to see how wrong I was, how disillusioned I've become.
Well ha ha! I've figured you out, THS! You won't trick me!
But still. On second thought, it does seem like it would be interesting to write up what I think about Sweden now, and then in a year's time I'll treat ye, the faithful readers of A More Swedish Life, to a reckoning. How does that grab you? You can think of me as a lab rat. Experiment: what becomes of a starry-eyed girl's dreams about Sweden after one year in the land of the midnight sun?
So here it goes.
Sweden, as far as I can see, and to quote The Guardian, is the most successful society the world has ever known. Here is what was written recently in The Economist:
This is all very true, but a bit abstract. You have to understand how moving Swedish society is for me, on a micro-level. I went through this short, stress-free procedure to get a visa for Sweden, and now I automatically have full and unlimited health insurance, for which I do not pay. As do all Swedes, and all immigrants to Sweden. That might not seem like very much to you, reading it now on this page. But maybe you've never known what it's like to be unable to go to the doctor. To have to be afraid of getting sick because you'll get sicker and sicker before you go to a doctor, and then when you do, you watch as the financial stress wears you down, body and soul.
And for those of you who think that people who have health insurance go to the doctor more often unnecessarily and create a gluttonous, wasteful system -- Swedes pay LESS in healthcare costs per capita than do Americans. And their healthcare system is as good or better, with, for example a much lower infant mortality rate than in the States. So they're literally putting less money out per person, and getting better care. How is it possible? Well, if everyone has to pay into health insurance automatically through taxes, and it's not something that the healthy can elect out of (because they can't afford it, like most American recent college graduates and Wal-mart employees) then the whole system stays well-funded at the exorbitant expense of no one -- a well-oiled, efficient machine.
David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times:
"In Greece, the government and individuals combine to spend about $2,300 per capita on health care each year, and the average life expectancy is 79 years. Canada, where the hospitals are probably cleaner, spends about $3,300, and people live to about 80. Here in the United States, we spend more than $6,000, yet life expectancy is just below 78.
The most obvious difference between their health care systems and ours — that their governments provide universal insurance — certainly plays a big role in the cost differences. Look behind the receptionist at your doctor’s office, and you will very likely see a staff of people filing claims to different insurance companies. The insurance companies, meanwhile, employ a small army charged with figuring out how to avoid covering the unhealthy."
Now I know what you're thinking: Oh sure! But I would never want to pay through the nose for all of this, with such high taxes! And it's true taxes are very high. But not in the way you might think, and not as punitively as you might think. First of all, Swedish income taxes are not higher than they are for Americans -- of any income bracket. Where Swedes pay out is in sales taxes. You may disagree, but I think this makes the situation a shade different in terms of the perception of freedom and comfort.
Secondly, the Swedish welfare state -- what you get for your high taxes -- is far more nuanced than you might expect. Unlike, for example, here in Germany, the Swedish welfare state is carefully calibrated so that the more you pay in, the more you get out. A high-income family that has a baby, for example, reaps significantly more in childcare benefits than a low-income family. This is to
ensure that the welfare state is not perceived by the wealthy as being a charity for the poor that has little to do with their own well-being. Everyone benefits. The universities are top-notch and entirely free of charge, for rich and poor alike.
Before you assume I'm a fanatic, however, I should say there are some thing I don't like about the system. I don't think unemployment benefits should run on for years, because I think it skews incentives in the wrong direction. I also don't think that there should be two and three year paid maternity leave, instead favoring Sweden's well-endowed low-cost guaranteed early childcare.
The problem with extended paid maternity leave is that it discourages the equal hiring and promotion of women in the workforce. No matter my feminist ideals, if I were running a small business and had to choose between hiring a man and a woman of child-bearing age, I'd go for the man, because even if I could afford to pay the maternity leave, I'd be losing out on the investment of time and training in the woman if she became pregnant. If you're a small business struggling to survive, it's unduly punitive and a structural favor to men. Every time I hear of a woman in Germany or Sweden who is working for a few years at a company just so she can get pregnant the minute she's worked there long enough to get the paid two-year-leave, it makes me sick. If you look at any one of these countries that give extended maternity leave, women are not advancing. It's just built in.
And here's where Sweden brings tears to my eyes. Do you know how they're considering dealing with this problem? Unlike me, they don't want to get rid of extended paid leave. They're thinking of FORCING parents to share the maternity/paternity leave. So that yes, there will still be people who work for a few years just to get the parental leave, but by law it will be split between the father and the mother. So that anybody of baby-making age can be discriminated against, man or woman. This is what is really unbelievable to me, and what really moves me.
Coming from America, you don't even think that such an enlightened paradise as Sweden could exist in real life, even if you don't necessarily agree with all of the particulars. Political debate in Sweden is on such a high level of humanism, it kills me. And the country is an economic powerhouse. They sacrifice so little for what they have, it forces all of us to rethink our most basic assumptions.
So there, I've said it. I think Sweden is a political paradise. And in the grand tradition of the men and women, the huddled masses, who made their way to our great shores seeking freedom, I've found in Sweden the greatest political freedom I've ever known, in the sense that there's a possibility of justice for all. The U.S. is run by a man who thinks that the 90 Million Americans who don't have health insurance are going to be okay. You may not see that as a reason to elect to be part of another society, but I do.
He probably has a devilish scheme to draw me out through flattery, luring me into innocently prattling on about Sweden, thus exposing my streets-are-paved-with-gold social theories, so that in a year's time he can sit me down in front of this entry and force me to see how wrong I was, how disillusioned I've become.
Well ha ha! I've figured you out, THS! You won't trick me!
But still. On second thought, it does seem like it would be interesting to write up what I think about Sweden now, and then in a year's time I'll treat ye, the faithful readers of A More Swedish Life, to a reckoning. How does that grab you? You can think of me as a lab rat. Experiment: what becomes of a starry-eyed girl's dreams about Sweden after one year in the land of the midnight sun?
So here it goes.
Sweden, as far as I can see, and to quote The Guardian, is the most successful society the world has ever known. Here is what was written recently in The Economist:
The Nordic region has the world's highest taxes and most generous welfare benefits. And yet Sweden, Finland and Denmark (Norway's oil sets it apart) have delivered strong growth and low unemployment, and rank among the world's most competitive economies. Nordic companies are strong in technology and research and development. Their health-care and educational systems are much admired. And, unlike other European countries, most Nordic states run healthy budget and current-account surpluses.
Sweden, whose 9m people make it by some way the biggest Nordic country, is a particular favourite. A year ago the Guardian, a British newspaper, said it was the most successful society the world had ever known. As if to bear this out, the Swedish economy grew at a sizzling annual rate of 5.6% in the second quarter of 2006, enough to trigger a spate of interest-rate rises by the central bank. Sweden's big companies, such as Ericsson, SKF, Telia and Volvo, are breaking export records.
A visit to the capital, Stockholm, confirms that life for most Swedes is pretty good.
This is all very true, but a bit abstract. You have to understand how moving Swedish society is for me, on a micro-level. I went through this short, stress-free procedure to get a visa for Sweden, and now I automatically have full and unlimited health insurance, for which I do not pay. As do all Swedes, and all immigrants to Sweden. That might not seem like very much to you, reading it now on this page. But maybe you've never known what it's like to be unable to go to the doctor. To have to be afraid of getting sick because you'll get sicker and sicker before you go to a doctor, and then when you do, you watch as the financial stress wears you down, body and soul.
And for those of you who think that people who have health insurance go to the doctor more often unnecessarily and create a gluttonous, wasteful system -- Swedes pay LESS in healthcare costs per capita than do Americans. And their healthcare system is as good or better, with, for example a much lower infant mortality rate than in the States. So they're literally putting less money out per person, and getting better care. How is it possible? Well, if everyone has to pay into health insurance automatically through taxes, and it's not something that the healthy can elect out of (because they can't afford it, like most American recent college graduates and Wal-mart employees) then the whole system stays well-funded at the exorbitant expense of no one -- a well-oiled, efficient machine.
David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times:
"In Greece, the government and individuals combine to spend about $2,300 per capita on health care each year, and the average life expectancy is 79 years. Canada, where the hospitals are probably cleaner, spends about $3,300, and people live to about 80. Here in the United States, we spend more than $6,000, yet life expectancy is just below 78.
The most obvious difference between their health care systems and ours — that their governments provide universal insurance — certainly plays a big role in the cost differences. Look behind the receptionist at your doctor’s office, and you will very likely see a staff of people filing claims to different insurance companies. The insurance companies, meanwhile, employ a small army charged with figuring out how to avoid covering the unhealthy."
Now I know what you're thinking: Oh sure! But I would never want to pay through the nose for all of this, with such high taxes! And it's true taxes are very high. But not in the way you might think, and not as punitively as you might think. First of all, Swedish income taxes are not higher than they are for Americans -- of any income bracket. Where Swedes pay out is in sales taxes. You may disagree, but I think this makes the situation a shade different in terms of the perception of freedom and comfort.
Secondly, the Swedish welfare state -- what you get for your high taxes -- is far more nuanced than you might expect. Unlike, for example, here in Germany, the Swedish welfare state is carefully calibrated so that the more you pay in, the more you get out. A high-income family that has a baby, for example, reaps significantly more in childcare benefits than a low-income family. This is to
ensure that the welfare state is not perceived by the wealthy as being a charity for the poor that has little to do with their own well-being. Everyone benefits. The universities are top-notch and entirely free of charge, for rich and poor alike.
Before you assume I'm a fanatic, however, I should say there are some thing I don't like about the system. I don't think unemployment benefits should run on for years, because I think it skews incentives in the wrong direction. I also don't think that there should be two and three year paid maternity leave, instead favoring Sweden's well-endowed low-cost guaranteed early childcare.
The problem with extended paid maternity leave is that it discourages the equal hiring and promotion of women in the workforce. No matter my feminist ideals, if I were running a small business and had to choose between hiring a man and a woman of child-bearing age, I'd go for the man, because even if I could afford to pay the maternity leave, I'd be losing out on the investment of time and training in the woman if she became pregnant. If you're a small business struggling to survive, it's unduly punitive and a structural favor to men. Every time I hear of a woman in Germany or Sweden who is working for a few years at a company just so she can get pregnant the minute she's worked there long enough to get the paid two-year-leave, it makes me sick. If you look at any one of these countries that give extended maternity leave, women are not advancing. It's just built in.
And here's where Sweden brings tears to my eyes. Do you know how they're considering dealing with this problem? Unlike me, they don't want to get rid of extended paid leave. They're thinking of FORCING parents to share the maternity/paternity leave. So that yes, there will still be people who work for a few years just to get the parental leave, but by law it will be split between the father and the mother. So that anybody of baby-making age can be discriminated against, man or woman. This is what is really unbelievable to me, and what really moves me.
Coming from America, you don't even think that such an enlightened paradise as Sweden could exist in real life, even if you don't necessarily agree with all of the particulars. Political debate in Sweden is on such a high level of humanism, it kills me. And the country is an economic powerhouse. They sacrifice so little for what they have, it forces all of us to rethink our most basic assumptions.
So there, I've said it. I think Sweden is a political paradise. And in the grand tradition of the men and women, the huddled masses, who made their way to our great shores seeking freedom, I've found in Sweden the greatest political freedom I've ever known, in the sense that there's a possibility of justice for all. The U.S. is run by a man who thinks that the 90 Million Americans who don't have health insurance are going to be okay. You may not see that as a reason to elect to be part of another society, but I do.
posted by Ida at 7:29 PM
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