Mladina: "Lies about waiting lines" in healthcare
STA, 24 August - The latest editorial of the left-wing weekly Mladina takes issue with what is sees as a hysterical attitude to healthcare in Slovenia. It focuses on the Lies about Waiting Lines, saying that any effective measures will only really show in ten years and that quick fix demands or promises mean political abuse of the issue.
"Until we start talking about healthcare realistically, politicians will be promising the impossible and the voters will hate them because they do not deliver. A vicious cycle of stupidity," editor-in-chief Grega Repovž says.
Public or private, Slovenia simply does not have enough doctors and nurses and this shortage cannot be tackled on the quick.
Waiting lines can only be cut by finally increasing enrolment into both faculties of medicine, encouraging specialisations and stimulating additional employment of medicinal staff where this is most needed.
"And that's that. If we do it today, it will only really show in ten years...This of course also means a lot of additional money both from the state and from the users. Yes, we are paying little for healthcare given what we expect from it - all of the high-tech that is available."
While also encouraging short-term measures, notably a more equal distribution of the burdens among the healthcare institutions in the country, Repovž notes that there is also a way to cut waiting lines very fast.
"We limit access to the services by introducing different insurance levels. Those with money will get everything, while this will already no longer apply to the middle class. The waiting lines will be gone, but mortality statistics will deteriorate."
According to the WHO, there are no waiting lines in Albania, while they are the longest in Scandinavian countries.
Demokracija: Slovenia could end up like Venezuela
STA, 23 August 2018 - The weekly paper Demokracija speaks in its latest editorial of empty a priori opposition to cooperation with Democrats (SDS) leader Janez Janša and of a victory of the deep state that is putting Slovenia at risk of a Venezuela scenario.
The wish to eliminate the winner of the general election is so big that the deep state is "ready to hand (informal) power into the hands of the extremist Left, put Slovenian citizens at risk of a Venezuela scenario and clad the country in even redder colours".
Editor-in-chief Jože Biščak also takes issue with the criticisms of Janša that are starting to appear on the right. He says the "pogrom has been brought to a point" where what he sees as an inauthentic section of the right "has also been sucked into this euphoria".
Biščak however claims that the problem is not Janša but the failure of the remaining right-wing parties "to make a real effort and to grow up ... instead of waiting for crumbs from the leftist table".
