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Finland Sickness Insurance
The Sickness Insurance Act of 1963 introduced health
insurance to Finland in two stages. First, beginning in
1964 it
provided payments when wages were lost because of illness
or
maternity leave and payments for the cost of treatment and
medicine. Three years later, it began paying doctors'
bills as
well. Until the act went into effect, only a small
minority of
the population, generally those employed by large firms,
had
medical insurance.
All persons resident in Finland for more than a short
time
were eligible for benefits. Foreigners had to register
with the
local health authorities to receive payments. In the
1980s, the
daily payment made to make up for losses of income due to
illness
averaged about 80 percent of a typical wage and could last
for as
many as 300 workdays. Highly paid individuals received
less.
Hospital care in public hospitals was generally free, and
other
compensation amounted to 60 percent of doctors' fees, 75
percent
of laboratory expenses, and 50 percent of medicine costs.
In the
mid-1980s, dental care was free for anyone born after
1961, but
for others it was paid only if dental problems had to be
treated
to cure a disease. Maternity leave payments amounted to
about 80
percent of income for about one year, and could begin five
weeks
before the estimated date of the birth. Fathers could take
some
of this time, with a corresponding cut in the days allowed
to the
mother. Sickness insurance was funded by the recipients
themselves through their payment of about 2 percent of
their
locally taxable income, by employers who paid a
contribution of
about 1 percent of the employee's wages, and by the state.
However generous these benefits appeared in an
international
context, medical fees had increased in the 1970s and the
1980s,
and government compensation rates had not kept pace. Rates
increased by 25 percent in 1986, but not enough according
to some
critics. Those who pressed for government relief believed
it
necessary even though public medical care, which
constituted the
bulk of medical care in Finland, was already highly
subsidized
and hence rather cheap compared with many other countries.
Data as of December 1988
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