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It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.

But it didn't. The experiment is proceeding according to plan and will continue until the end of 2018.

Contrary to reports, the basic income experiment will continue

Pharmacies are required by the law to offer a substitute for a prescribed medicine with a generally available interchangeable alternative, which would be the case for typical painkillers and I guess for vitamins as well. Works very well. Generic substitution

That may be a valid point, but it's worth mentioning that the welfare state doesn't have to be run at the national level. Much of Kela is run and funded by municipalities, not the national Government. Finland leads the world in education yet has no standardized tests or national curriculum mandates. Intuitive at the local level is encouraged, not stifled.

Of course it still won't happen here, even if we got over our love affair with top-down control. Our mistrust of institutions doesn't begin or end with the Federal Government. I do find these conversations interesting though; people on the American left talk a big game about how awesome the Nordic countries are but very few of them actually know anything about them. Finland has no concept of tuition -- even foreigners can go study there for free (with only one barrier to entry, it's called "Finnish") -- but they also have universal conscription.

Think there are many people on the American left that would support universal conscription? Not bloody likely. Which is too bad, because it would actually make interventionism less likely, not more. Anyhow, I digress.....

To put it in your perspective, should a Swedish fire company cross the border and put out a Finnish house fire? Unless there is an agreement between Sweden and Finland for such action, isn't that outside the responsibility (legal, not ethically) of the Swedish fire company?

I tried searching the web for an official agreement between Finland and Sweden about helping each other. I found one magazine article about Tornio's agreement with Haaparanta in the 1990's about helping fire departments across border.
I also found out that Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland made an "agreement about co-operation across state borders in accidents that may harm or are harming people, property or environment." Finland has similar agreements with Estonia and Russia.

All rescue services are paid by taxes and I'm quite happy about it. And we have free universal health care also paid with taxation. And you can't forget our free education system. Tuitions are a thing we only know from movies. Studying in Finland is free even for foreigners.

Ok, enough bragging about my home country. We pay a lot of taxes. I think that only Sweden has higher taxation. But really I OK about paying high taxes for what's it worth. Progressive taxation is a fair system in my opinion. In a way.

Ok, now I'm going offtopic but I always find it amusing that everywhere in the world you teach your kids that "if you have two apples and your friend doesn't have any, you should give the other to your friend". When the kids grow up, they lock their apples in a safe and don't care s*it about people who don't have apples at all.

"Due"? You are not entitled to take money from your neighbors' wallets for your own enrichment. It's theft of property/labor. It's a form of partial enslavement (they work, not for themselves, but to make somebody else richer). Therefore it's a violation of basic individual rights. You have no right to take from others.

I'm European. I have never met a person who has gotten rich, or even well-off thanks to welfare benefits. We pay taxes to uphold a society; roads, police, hospitals. That we also pay other things, like child-, education- or unemployment-benefits seems a good thing for me. After all, even if the children aren't my own, they still grow in the same society as I do. It is my gain that they get a high education and the pay check to go with it... because once they are that far, I'll be drawing my pension and and all sort of state benefits. It is better that my home country is the homeland of engineers, doctors and other highly educated people (with of course plumblers and salesmen and whatever else you need to keep a functioning society; but even they need to be well educated to do their civil duty and vote wisely).
Nobody should be in worse position because their father was a drunk or they had no savings for education. And of course, none of this is free. They will pay it back, once they enter the working force. That's the deal. Everybody knows it. And doctor still makes several times more than taxi driver; just a bit less than they do in America. To paraphrase you; if you don't like it, you can move out. Passports are readily available and the world is open at your feet. This is no Soviet Union.

We are in this together. Sure, everybody could just take care of their own life, their own immediate surroundings. I have sometimes thought that part of the reason Americans drive everywhere is because they don't connect with the places between the places important. Why should roads have sidewalks when I have a car? Why have public transport? But that limits alternatives; maybe one day you want to walk to a store only to find out you can't; or take a bus to work only to find out there isn't one. And if you have kids, how are they going to get anywhere without you driving them? Few of us can afford taxi all the time.

Similarly, I pay for many things that I don't need; I pay for schools, daycare and doctors. Even as I am single and have no kids, even if I'm healthy as an ox. But maybe one day I shall have kids, and one day I will be sick. It is good to know that when that day comes, it is not the end of the world. That there's somebody in the bureaucracy who already thought of my kid. That my child can walk to school. That he gets education no matter how I screw my life over. And maybe I make less money (though who knows? American taxes are surprisingly high even before insurances and whatnot), but I can afford to buy everything I need. I don't really feel like I'm worse off than the (incredibly well off) characters in your TV-shows, even if I'm not a secret agent or a doctor or a cop with million-dollar settlement.

If you really want to know, i have link to a official pdf file that shows the amounts. To be found at http://www.kela.fi/in/internet/liite.nsf/alias/inf o8epdf/$File/yleisenp.pdf?OpenElement/

Summary:
For higher education the support from the goverment is 259,01€ + 80% from your rent up to 252,00€
Max total: 460,61€ - taxes (default is about 20%) and you end up with 368,49€ in your bankaccount every month which you are fulltime student from the friendly goverment.
And as a bonus you will get most of those 20% taxes back in few years time, that is if didn't any other major income in the time you collected the support.

You can earn up to 9090€ a year and it does not affect your support, but after that your support will start a steep dive closing to zero fast. I know, i have paid about 3500€ back to the man from 3 years of collecting that support.