Episode 117 · 2022-01-16 · 24:31 · Original in Finnish
Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Negotiator 117
Originally published as “Panttivangiksi hyvinvointialueelle | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117”
Tere Sammallahti is a National Coalition candidate in the West Uusimaa county elections and begins by admitting that he does not like the reform at all: his first campaign theme would have been to cancel it, and since that is no longer politically available, the question becomes how to make a catastrophe tolerable. He calls his own position being a hostage — if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. His remedy is better competitive tendering with real quality criteria; his example of the wrong metric is the nurse staffing ratio, which he likens to judging a building by how many people built it. He opposes a county tax on empirical grounds: if taxing powers produced efficiency, municipalities and the state would already be efficient. The uncomfortable section comes at the end: if services cannot be produced efficiently, something has to be cut, and it will fall on the remotest areas, where efficiency is weakest.
Core theses
- Standing for a body you would abolish is a coherent position once abolition is off the table, and the episode is unusually honest about that being the argument.
- A staffing ratio measures inputs, so it is satisfied by hiring rather than by anyone being cared for better — which is why Sammallahti wants quality criteria written into tendering instead.
- The case against a county tax here is empirical rather than ideological: a third taxing body would, like the other two, always find its own tasks important enough to need a little more.
- If efficiency does not arrive, the choice is what to cut, and Sammallahti says plainly that it will be services in the remotest areas — which candidates generally avoid saying.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Guest Tere Sammallahti for the third time
- 01:46 — Stefan Törnqvist as a rival in the same district
- 03:54 — The first theme would have been cancelling the reform
- 05:24 — The nurse staffing ratio as an example of the wrong metric
- 07:08 — A third tier of administration and an unused merger clause
- 08:27 — Why Sammallahti feels he is a hostage
- 10:32 — Vote magnets and taking responsibility
- 12:28 — Why a county tax would not produce efficiency
- 14:27 — The Yle tax as an example of an automatic mechanism
- 16:02 — The dilemma of a free service
- 18:41 — Has the Overton window moved to the right
- 20:54 — Small municipalities' worry about an Espoo-led county
- 22:53 — The village school debate as a comparison
- 23:39 — Quantitative planning without municipal boundaries
Summary
Tere Sammallahti is a National Coalition candidate in the West Uusimaa county elections and begins by admitting that he does not like the reform at all: his first campaign theme would have been to cancel it, and since that is no longer politically available, the question becomes how to make a catastrophe tolerable. He calls his own position being a hostage — if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. His remedy is better competitive tendering with real quality criteria; his example of the wrong metric is the nurse staffing ratio, which he likens to judging a building by how many people built it. He opposes a county tax on empirical grounds: if taxing powers produced efficiency, municipalities and the state would already be efficient. The uncomfortable section comes at the end: if services cannot be produced efficiently, something has to be cut, and it will fall on the remotest areas, where efficiency is weakest.
Running for something you would abolish
The framing is the episode’s contribution. Sammallahti wanted the reform cancelled and would have preferred three to five regions or a single national body to 21 counties, but accepts that it will not happen, and concludes that abstaining hands the new institution to people who want it larger. Calling that being a hostage is unusually candid for a candidate and it is an argument, not a complaint.
The staffing ratio measures the wrong thing
A minimum number of nurses per resident is an input target. It is met by employing people, and it says nothing about whether anyone was cared for better — which is why Sammallahti wants quality standards written into tendering and monitored by the purchaser instead.
The part candidates skip
If the efficiency does not materialise, something gets cut, and Sammallahti says it will be the journeys to health centres, maternity wards and specialist care in the remotest areas that lengthen. Saying so a week before polling day is the least comfortable passage in the episode and the reason it is worth keeping.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Panttivangiksi hyvinvointialueelle | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Tere Sammallahti