By Bond Robertson 
The government makes proposals to remove the free choice of treatment.
By all accounts, a majority in Parliament Storting would support the proposal.
Free choice of treatment means that patients are given the opportunity to choose where they want to receive treatment, including private operators.
The scheme was introduced in 2015 by the then Minister of Health and Welfare Bint Hoi (H). Now it will soon be a thing of the past: as early as January 1, 2023, the government will begin to liquidate.
Rebellion in Parliament: – I refuse
Happy Kjerkol
Høie’s successor, Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap), is happy to get rid of the scheme. She was almost dancing up the stairs and into the meeting room where guild leader Mette Nord was on her way as well.
– We are now getting rid of the privatization reform that did not improve the health service or reduce waiting time for treatment, Kjerkol told Dagbladet.
The free choice of treatment gave private actors a straw in funding local hospitals and led to the weakening of public health services. Labor has been against the free choice of treatment since day one, and the assessment gave us no reason to reconsider our position, says Kirkul.
After crying in the back room: – Desperate
Everyone should join
The Minister of Health claims that the free choice of treatment has given those with obese portfolios the best health care, while at the same time weakening the services the rest of the country receives from the public sector.
– That’s because the money followed the patient, and thus hundreds of millions of NOK disappeared from public health and into the pockets of private players. We prefer using taxpayers’ money to promote affordable healthcare in our common public health service, she says.
He disappeared without a trace
Nord: – Happy day
Next to her sits the head of the trade union confederation, Mitt Nord. Many Nord members work in hospitals that have undergone a free choice of treatment.
– This is a day of joy, Mette Nord tells Dagbladet.
From day one, we have seen how free choice of treatment has made it more difficult to plan and coordinate hospitals. Many employees had to work in several places to get a full job on their feet. Not least, valuable expertise has been drained from the public health system. The head of the trade union adds that this has created a division that is completely at odds with the Norwegian model.
He asked to go out on a date
out of billions
Since 2016, 1.8 billion has been transferred from the public healthcare system to the budgets of private actors through the free choice of treatment. This is the money that Kirkol believes the public can best use.
In short: the free choice of treatment made the health service worse, did not reduce treatment queues, and represented an unfair division in our society. I am glad that today we are proposing to Parliament to abolish this arrangement, says Kirkul.
Mit Nord communicates with the Minister of Health. lowers her voice.
– I just have to say it, Engfield. This is great news. There will be a clap of hands in the guild when I tell them this.
On the right: – Approx
In Høyre, on the other hand, there is no applause for the news.
That Kjerkol cheers this up to Dagbladet, on a day when waiting time numbers show that waiting times go up no matter what illness you need treatment for, is a grim irony. Tone Trøen (H) tells Dagbladet that it is very embarrassing for the Minister of Health to claim that it was those with good advice who used free choice of treatment and that free choice of treatment did not work.
You see, you are asking the Minister of Health to make a trip “outside the Oslo offices”.
– When the government now removes the free choice of treatment, the choice turns into a question of the size of the portfolio of each individual patient. This is the reality of Labor policy, and it is a fork in the health service that the Conservative Party cannot accept, says Tron.