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Democrats point to Nordic nations as models of socialism. Here’s how they actually work. - washingtonpost.com/opinions/globa…
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development report shows that five nations — Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands — protect property rights somewhat more aggressively than the United States, on average;
...exercise less control over private enterprise; permit greater concentration in the banking sector; and distribute a smaller share of their total income to workers.
“Copy the Nordic model if you like, but understand that it entails a lot of capitalism and pro-business policies, a lot of taxation on middle class spending and wages, minimal reliance on corporate taxation and plenty of co-pays and deductibles in its healthcare system,”
Sanders and other left-leaning Democrats promise to pay for tuition-free college and Medicare-for-all with higher taxes on the top 1 percent of earners. Most Nordic countries, by contrast, have zero estate tax.
They fund generous programs with the help of value-added taxes that heavily affect middle-class consumers.
These countries are generous; but they are not stupid. They understand there is no such thing as “free” health care, and that requiring patients to have at least some skin in the game, in the form of cost-sharing, helps contain costs.
“We have to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all, including the undocumented,” Sanders said last month at a presidential forum hosted by immigrant-rights groups in California.
Actually, none of the Nordic countries enroll undocumented immigrants in their national health plans on equal terms with citizens and legal residents. Generally speaking, the countries provide acute care to undocumented adults, and full care to children, on an ad hoc basis.
This is not unlike the United States, which provides billions of dollars’ worth of health care to undocumented people through various channels, public and private. In Denmark, private charity covers those who are undocumented.
If they have established anything, it’s not socialism, or even the dominance of a benevolent state, but responsible governance.
They have achieved a clear division of labor, between government (which arguably has a comparative advantage in health insurance and education) and the private sector (which is better at producing and distributing most other goods and services).
What the Nordic countries don’t do is pretend that society can have a strong and efficient social safety net without a big, mandatory financial contribution from the middle class.
Nor do they deal punitively with the private sector, upon whose productivity the entire system ultimately depends.
