Geelmuyden.Kiese

TANKER

SICK!
01.02.2010

Noone should feel bad about staying home when they’re ill, says Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The statement is banal. No-one said anything about abolishing sick-pay. Of course the sick should stay home with a clear conscience. But is the opposite true? Should people feel bad about staying home when they’re not ill? And should society pay their wages from day 1, at any cost?

Political debate is always about morals, but if the debate is going to go anywhere, it must be based on facts and principles. We know the employment rate today is nearly 80 per cent, that 7.5 per cent of workers are on sick leave every day, we know short-term sick leaves constitute 80 per cent, and that 80 to 90 per cent of the 120,000 who have been on sick leave for more than 12 months never return to work, and that disability pays 80 per cent of the income, whereas the sick pay is 100 per cent. For my own part, I know Norwegians are hard-working. The problem is simply we can’t afford to carry on this way.

On this background, a discussion of a few principles could prove interesting. For instance, one might ask oneself whether health is a public responsibility, or an individual one. The way I see it, every person has a responsibility for his or her own health. Anyone can be struck by random illness, but nearly all can influence their health through personal lifestyle decisions. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that each individual share some of the cost of illness, together with the community and employers, who must also take responsibility. Further, I think one should profit from working and staying healthy. If work did not pay, I know that I for one would choose spend my time differently, however much I love my trade.

If one shares this particular point of view, it should be fairly simple to halt the growth of sick leave costs. When the IA-agreement is up for renegotiation, today’s practice has to be restricted. Doctors should not be gatekeepers to sick pay, workers such as myself must pay a bigger parts of the costs, and those who are taken ill must be taken care of quicker so that they again may contribute to, instead of drawing on, the community. Today’s sick leave arrangement is not a matter of ”going Dutch”. It is settling the bill without the landlord.

Hans Geelmuyden