[bjornsing]

As a Swede I used to feel this way too, at least to some extent. But then I came to need the system for a period, and that has radically changed my view. It’s not so much that the healthcare and benefits you get are limited, I can accept that. It’s that these systems are full of nasty people who take advantage of their power to satisfy their own psychological needs, at the expense of the vulnerable (read: me 5 years ago).

Now I just have an uneasy feeling of being half-enslaved: I have to pay 60-70% of all the value I create into this system, and if I do fall seriously ill I could very well die on a park bench.

Sadly my conclusion is that I have to get out of here. I don’t think I could take another iteration of this without succumbing to bitterness.

Before you judge me think about the Fundamental Attribution Error: yes, I’m not exactly like you as a person, but more importantly I have information you probably don’t have (i.e. what it’s like to be at the bottom of this kind of society).

[silvestrov]

> these systems are full of nasty people

This is everywhere. Paying out of pocket does not fix this.

[bjornsing]

One more important difference: It’s terrible to die on a park bench because you can’t support yourself and other people won’t help you. But in my mind it’s worse to die on a park bench because the state extracted 60-70% taxes from you, and now won’t give you even a small portion of that back. To me that’s just inhuman…

[bjornsing]

It does in one very important way: You don’t have to keep paying the exact people who victimized you.

[rejectfinite]

You can change hospital/primary care though?

And any country has a connected system. If not taxes then its gonna be insurance.

[bjornsing]

> You can change hospital/primary care though?

By law, yes. In practice, no.

I think this is what may be hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it: if you fall far enough in Swedish society you are essentially dehumanized.

[rejectfinite]

>It’s that these systems are full of nasty people who take advantage of their power to satisfy their own psychological needs, at the expense of the vulnerable (read: me 5 years ago).

As a fellow Swede, elaborate?

If what I am going to healthcare for is REAL they take very good care of you. They know when it's serious or not. If you waste their time, gtfo.

[bjornsing]

That’s only true when they can identify with you. If you have very REAL health problems (e.g. drug addiction or serious mental health issues) you are essentially dehumanized.