Free choice: The six leaders of the blue parties have presented five common measures that are meant to promote free choice in relation to welfare services.
- Pregnant women should be able to choose between a public and a private hospital. The pay at the private hospital should be discounted by the value of the public one.
- Guaranteed fertility treatment for childless couples. You should be able to go to a private clinic if you must wait longer than 30 days.
- Young people should be able to choose the gymnasium they want and not based on their parent’s income, as it is today.
- At least one private elderly care home in every municipality. The elderly should be able to choose between a public elderly home and a private one (friplejehjem). The difference is made up by the extra services you can purchase in the private one.
- The blue parties are encouraging the privatization of the public sector, which can lead in the long term to welfare access only for the rich.
The “free choice” presentation sparked a debate around the question “Should elderly people be allowed to refuse care from people wearing a headscarf?” Initially, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen (Venstre) said that elderly people should be allowed to refuse (like DF proposed last month), quickly backtracking its statement after the conference, saying that free choice should be about the quality of the service and not who delivers it.
Venstre: To compete with the Socialdemokratiet, they want to cut even more taxes. 8,7 billion DKK (more than double what Socialdemokratiet proposed). 5 billion to reduce taxes on work; 3 billion to increase the tax deduction for full-time workers and 700 million to reduce taxes for businesses. Not yet defined where the money should come from.
Konservative: After calling Greenland, “Africa on Ice”, Søren Pape is once again in the middle of a scandal. He apologized publicly, but the Greenlandic people are not happy.
Liberal Alliance: The young leader and TikTok influencer, Alex Vanoplasgh, has broken the rules of the Danish Parliament and now has to pay a 30.000 DKK fine. In order to get a free apartment in Copenhagen (provided by the Parliament), he maintained a home address in Struer (Jylland). However, he spent less than 180 days at his home address to be qualified as such.
