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But there are always pressure to reduce public "costs" to reduce taxes. That European health care is better for the average person is not a given, it is somethi

But there are always pressure to reduce public "costs" to reduce taxes. That European health care is better for the average person is not a given, it is something that Europeans need to keep pressuring to not lose. I have seen degrading healthcare in Spain, for example, as banks received millions of Euros during the housing crisis money for hospitals shrunk. But when things got better it takes a lot of fighting to just get some money back into public services. Part of what makes Europe such an amazing place to live is good public health care. It improves all well being metrics.

dijit 4y ago
> But there are always pressure to reduce public "costs" to reduce taxes. You are right for some definition of this; but in Sweden people are very happy to pay tax even if it's a lot, because they see themselves as getting a lot back for it. That's not true when everything is mismanaged and underfunded though; which is the current case. Healthcare is in the grips of private hands for other reasons in Sweden, and that's that the healthcare system doesn't pay well for directly employed doctors- this leads to everyone working for the private health services and since there is a dearth of doctors working for the government: they must hire these companies.
unity1001 4y ago
Nothing you couldn't fix: Every time the private interests increase their pressure to privatize things, vote for a more left-wing party in proportion to the pressure that the private lobbies are putting on the government. If they go full postal Ayn Rand, you go full communist in voting. As historically verified by the experience of many countries, nothing less than this fixes that problem. If they pull the rope one inch, you pull it two inches.