Using idyllic portrayals of Nordic health care without any description of the realities there to buttress arguments in favor of Medicare for All is a sham and a shame. In this opinion in the WSJ (Aug. 2019) Adam O'Neil reports what Johan Norgberg says about capitalism in Sweden. Here are some money quotes:
- "Trouble is, most Swedes aren’t in line with American socialists like Ms. Nixon, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 'All of their models that they could point to, given a couple of years, they end up in famine and killing,' Swedish author and historian Johan Norberg tells me. 'So they always come back to Scandinavia in the end.' True, Sweden has a significant welfare state, but Mr. Norberg says it’s underpinned by 'ruthless capitalism.'"
- “'One thing the left gets wrong is that they think that Sweden has this sort of warm, friendly, fuzzy capitalist thing—no layoffs, no fierce competition, protecting the old companies and so on. And it’s really the total opposite,' Mr. Norberg says. 'It’s more deregulated. The product markets are much fiercer competition, much more free trade. All of the companies know that they have to be world champions or they will be destroyed.'
"American leftists, even those who shy away from the 'socialist' label, generally call for higher taxes on 'the rich' to support an expanded welfare and entitlement state. That, too, misapprehends the Swedish example. 'We have much higher taxes on the poor and the middle classes than you do,' Mr. Norberg says. 'And this is the dirty little secret that no one in the American left wants to talk about.' Nonprogressive taxes on consumption, social security and payroll are 27% of Swedish gross domestic product, 16 points higher than in the U.S.
"Assumptions about Swedish health care often are wrong too".
