No-brainer from Erna Solberg on sickness benefit
On the TV2 news yesterday, Erna presented a calculation which, according to her, is a no-brainer. The only problem is that Erna Solberg's (Conservatives) calculation does not add up.
August 5, 2025
Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg, photo from the Conservative Party by Hans Kristian Thorbjornsen
Erna's calculation
On the TV2 news yesterday, Erna presented a calculation which, according to her, is a no-brainer.
Erna says that the Conservatives, through their "Health Pledge", want to use private health services and free choice of hospital to treat people on sick leave. The Conservatives have not presented any calculation showing what the measure will cost, as the TV2 news anchor notes.
Asked by the reporter, Erna answers: "If we spend, for example, 500,000 (NOK) in sickness benefit on a person where it costs 60,000 to get them back to work, then it is really a relatively simple calculation to think that we ought to get those people back to work. It is really to save money on the expenses we have on AAP and sickness benefit."
Who will then receive less treatment when the Conservatives are to prioritize people on sick leave, unless you inject billions? the reporter asks. Erna answers: "This reasoning is that this costs us a great deal on the national budget today by their being passive and at home; instead of us giving them a lot of money to sit on the sofa at home or walk around suffering with pain and aches in order to be able to go to work, we rather use that money to treat people. I think it is a no-brainer, really."
Lacking socio-economic documentation
It is possible that Erna is right that there is an underestimated connection between sick leave, AAP and health queues, but that does not mean private health services and free choice of hospital can solve the societal problem. It comes down to what the reporter rightly mentions, that the calculation does not add up unless billions are injected. If Erna and the Conservatives could actually present a socio-economic calculation that withstands audit, they would certainly have done so and could even have won this autumn's parliamentary election.
In an earlier article here on Society and Politics which takes a closer look at private health services, it emerges that there is no basis for claiming that private health care is socio-economically beneficial. Despite the Conservatives having claimed this for years, they have themselves never presented documentation supporting the claim.
The facts
There is, on the other hand, documentation showing that competition-driving mechanisms do NOT exist between the operators in the private hospital industry. What can be documented is that private hospitals drive up wage costs in the public health service as well, and that tax money goes to dividends for owners who are often located abroad. The Conservatives' policy has led to billions in tax money going to private welfare profiteers at home and abroad.
Compared with other countries in Europe, Norway has the most expensive health service per inhabitant, while the services delivered are merely mediocre. When it comes to the number of operations per head, Norway lies below the average. There is little to gain from production efficiency in Norwegian hospitals, as the Conservatives claim; it is the bureaucracy that makes Norwegian health care costly.
The Labour Party, for its part, is incapable of admitting that the health trust model has failed, and consequently lacks the will to reorganise the model for the benefit of the economy and the Norwegian people.
SOURCES
Magma Research
Productivity and efficiency analyses in the health sectorThe Norwegian Directorate of Health
Productivity in specialist health servicesThe Norwegian Medical Association
The trust model must be scrappedCentral Norway Regional Health Authority
Needs assessment – purchase of specialist health servicesStatistics Norway
Health accounts
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