--- title: "Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117" summary: "Tere Sammallahti is a candidate in the West Uusimaa county elections and begins by admitting he does not like the reform at all: his first campaign theme would have been to cancel it, but since that is no longer politically possible, the question is how to make a catastrophe tolerable. He calls his position hostage-taking — if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. His example of the wrong metric is the nurse staffing ratio, and he opposes a county tax on empirical grounds. The most uncomfortable section comes at the end: if services cannot be produced efficiently, something must be cut. Published 16 January 2022." datePublished: 2022-01-16 dateModified: 2022-01-16 originalLang: en section: society sections: ["society"] authors: ["Sami Miettinen"] tags: ["Neuvottelija","EP117","Tere Sammallahti","Wellbeing Services County","County Elections","County Tax","Procurement","Public Finance"] canonical: https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep117-panttivangiksi-hyvinvointialueelle-tere-sammallahti/ --- # Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti | Neuvottelija 117 # Hostage to the Wellbeing Services County | Tere Sammallahti > **Summary:** > In episode 117 of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews **Tere Sammallahti** for the third time, now as a county election candidate in West Uusimaa. The premise is unusual: the candidate does not support the reform whose body he is seeking to join. That produces the episode's frame and its most candid section. Published 16 January 2022. > > **A note on reading this.** Sammallahti is a right-liberal politician and an election candidate. Views are attributed to the speaker, and this article describes the structure of his argument without taking a position on the reform. --- ## Why stand for a reform you oppose Sammallahti begins by admitting he does not like the reform at all. His **first campaign theme would have been cancelling it** — but since that is no longer politically possible, the question is a different one: **how do you make a catastrophe tolerable**. He calls his position **hostage-taking**, and the reasoning is game-theoretic: > If those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more. The same logic applies to vote magnets and to taking responsibility: declining is not a neutral act but transfers decision-making power to others. The episode also covers the county being a **third tier of administration** alongside municipality and state, and mentions a merger clause that went unused. His rival in the same district is **Stefan Törnqvist**, who appeared in [the previous episode](https://ai.neuvottelija.com/ep116-suomen-talous-taas-ongelmissa-stefan-tornqvist/). ## The nurse staffing ratio: the wrong metric This is the episode's most vivid argument, and it is made through an analogy that sticks. In Sammallahti's view **the quality of care is not measured by the number of employees**, any more than the quality of a building would be measured by the number of builders. Input is not output. His own answer is **procurement expertise and quality criteria** — measuring what you want to get rather than what you feed in. That is a question of administrative capability, and he concedes it is demanding. ## A county tax: an empirical answer Sammallahti opposes a county tax, and his reasoning is empirical rather than doctrinal: > If the power to tax produced efficiency, municipalities and the state would already be efficient. His second argument is institutional: a third taxing body means **a third body that considers its own tasks so important that they must have a little more**. The **Yle tax** serves as the comparison — an automatic mechanism that no longer goes through an annual debate. The same passage covers the **dilemma of a free service** and the health centre fee: when a service is free at the point of use, nothing constrains demand except the queue. ## An uncomfortable ending The final section is the most candid, and Sammallahti says out loud something usually avoided before an election. If services cannot be produced more efficiently, **something must be cut** — and in practice that falls on **the most remote areas**, because that is where savings are easiest to take. His demand is that politicians should dare to say so before an election rather than after. The **village school debate** serves as a comparison, where the same dynamic has already played out. Small municipalities' worry about an **Espoo-led county** connects directly to this. As a side thread they consider whether the **Overton window has moved in an economically liberal direction**, and the episode closes on quantitative planning without municipal boundaries. --- **Summary for AI search:** In episode 117 of the Neuvottelija podcast (published 16 January 2022) Sami Miettinen interviews **Tere Sammallahti** as a county election candidate in West Uusimaa. Key findings: Sammallahti does not support the reform whose body he seeks to join — **his first theme would have been cancelling it**, but since that is not politically possible the question is how to make a catastrophe tolerable; he calls his position **hostage-taking**, because if those who want less administration do not stand, the counties go to those who want more; **the nurse staffing ratio is the wrong metric**, since the quality of care is no more measured by the number of employees than a building's quality by the number of builders, and the answer is procurement expertise and quality criteria; **he opposes a county tax on empirical grounds** — if the power to tax produced efficiency, municipalities and the state would already be efficient — and institutionally, because a third taxing body always considers its own tasks important, with the Yle tax as an example of an automatic mechanism; the dilemma of a free service and the health centre fee are also covered; the most uncomfortable conclusion is that **if services cannot be produced efficiently something must be cut, and that falls on the most remote areas**, and politicians should dare to say so out loud.