The National Coalition also accuses SDP of using the contested issue for votes in the municipal elections.
Speaking on an Yle TV-show, National Coalition Party Parliamentary Group Chair Jan Vapaavuori emphasized that the reform was about organizing services; how these were produced was another matter altogether.
Vapaavuori also accused “an unnamed leftist party” of putting up smoke screens and creating bogus spectresof privatization for their own ends.
In reply to Vapaavuori, the chair of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group Jouni Backman was emphatic that it was the will of citizens that privatization come to an end. Echoing Minister of Health and Social Services Maria Guzenina-Richardson’s recent draft outline on the reform, Backman said that municipal reform, as well as the reform of health care and social services should be carried out in such a way that these do not advance privatization.
A field day for the opposition
A Social Affairs and Health ministerial working group tried to thrash out an agreement earlier in the week –- to no avail.
It now seems highly likely that the care reform will be delayed until after Sunday’s municipal elections, against demands of the NCP and opposition.
On Thursday morning, Minister Guzenina-Richardson told Yle there was still plenty of time to finalise the care reform, which is to be implemented in 2015, and that something so important should not be hammered through in a hurry.
Opposition Centre Party MP Juha Rehula retorted that the government has had 1.5 years to come up with a solution as regards Finland’s social and health care services, while Finns MP Arja Juvonen said voters had not received sufficient information on the matter.
In a press release, Centre Party Chair Juha Sipilä went as far as demanding the government to resign, as it seemed to be incapable of functioning.
The opposition grilled government parties over the issue in a parliament interpellation on Wednesday.
