Medicare for All and tuition-free universities have been at the core of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns, creating a stark division between progressive candidates and their centrist counterparts. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed to make Medicare for All and public universities cost-free by taxing massive corporations and the super wealthy, and earlier this year, Sanders introduced legislation that would cancel student loan debt. His plan would be paid for with a new tax on Wall Street, he says. It would also make public universities and community colleges free — a key pillar of Sanders’s 2020 education platform. These proposals are not radical ideas in Sweden, a country that has built one of the world’s most extensive social welfare systems. In Sweden, healthcare costs are largely subsided by the state. Daycare and preschool programs are mostly free. College and university are free. Public transportation is subsidized for many users. To explain how Sweden does it, we speak with Mikael Törnwall, Swedish author and journalist focusing on economic issues at Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm daily newspaper. His most recent book is titled “Who Should Pay for Welfare?”
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Norwegian songwriter, vocalist, guitarist Ane Brun performing “One” at the Right Livelihood Award ceremony Wednesday night here in Stockholm. To see all the performances and all the speeches of the Right Livelihood laureates, go to Democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We are broadcasting from Stockholm, Sweden, from the Open Channel.
As Democratic presidential candidates debate Medicare for All and making public higher education free, we turn now to look at how Sweden has built one of the world’s most extensive social welfare systems. Here in Sweden, healthcare costs are largely subsidized by the state. Daycare and preschool programs are mostly free. Higher education is free. Public transportation is subsidized for many users. To look at how Sweden does it, we are joined by Mikael Törnwall. He’s a Swedish author and journalist focusing on economic issues at Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm daily. His most recent book is titled Who Should Pay for Welfare?.
Mikael, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. So we just have a few minutes here to explain a lot of issues that I think are very misunderstood in the United States. You have lived in the U.S. You live here in Sweden. Talk about Medicare for All. Talk about your healthcare system. How is it paid for?
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: It’s almost entirely paid for by taxes. And I know that scares a lot of you guys, but the things we pay, for me at least, I pay almost equivalent in healthcare taxes than you would pay via your employer for health insurance. But what I also get by that is that I don’t have any copayments to talk about. The maximum copayment for healthcare in Sweden is a few hundred dollars a year.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain your own personal situation. What happened with your daughter?
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah, that happened a few years ago before we moved to the U.S. She got ill and she had a brain tumor, fortunately not a deadly one. She got operated on by one of the best surgeons in Europe.
AMY GOODMAN: How old was she?
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: She was 12. She got excellent care afterwards. We stayed as a family with her at the hospital for a week. And she then had follow-up care for several years. She had to go to a doctor every few months. And we paid nothing for that.
AMY GOODMAN: Nothing.
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Because she’s a child until 18. You don’t pay anything for healthcare.
AMY GOODMAN: So then you come to the United States and you’re shocked.
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah. And what happened there was for some reason she needed to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and they asked, “What healthcare company do you have?” And since we are from Sweden, we had a very small one that wasn’t covered, and I had to pay with a credit card to get her to the hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: So you’re watching the presidential debates. Every corporate network journalist who hosts one of these debates, they usually ask a question about healthcare and they say, “Are you going to raise taxes?” Talk about how the Swedish people feel about this. Because you’re talking about an issue that unites people across the political spectrum in Sweden.
MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah. Nobody, not even the most conservative parties, would like to get rid of this system. And I think there are two reasons for that. One is that—or two misconceptions, also, in the U.S. One is that it costs us a lot of money in terms of taxes. Yes, it does. We pay way higher taxes in Sweden than in the U.S. But we are way lower expenses for copayments for healthcare, health insurance, daycare, saving for children’s college and so on. We don’t need to bother about that. So the higher taxes for most people is more than offset by lower costs for other stuff.
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