Sweden - OECD Summary

Summaries of summaries of healthcare systems based on the Commonwealth Fund reports.
Author(s) of the originals are:
Karsten Vrangbaek, Isabelle Durand-Zaleski, Reinhard Busse, Niek Klazinga, Sean Boyle, and Anders Anell

Sweden
• The Swedish system sounds very much like the truly socialized systems that we have come to expect from right-wing fear mongers. Everyone is covered, everything is covered, and virtually everything is funded by the government through taxes.
• There are some co-pays and the deductibles and routine dental care for those over 18 is not generally covered.
• Co-pays for visits amount to about $20 for a general practitioner and $40 for a specialist. There is an approximately $12 per day co-pay for hospitalization and there is a deductible of about $140 annually for prescriptions. Once you go over this amount then there is a scaled re-payment or reimbursement (the higher the expenditure, the higher percentage the state pays.)
• Out-of-pocket expenses account for approximately 14% of total health expenditure.
• Funding is through federal and local taxes.
• The federal government is mostly responsible for prescription drug costs.
• County governments are responsible largely for hospitals, mental-health care, provider reimbursement etc.
• Municipalities are responsible for skilled nursing facilities and the like, as well as home care and some other things.
• Private insurance covers approximately 25% of the population and accounts for less than 1% of total health expenditures.
• Physicians are paid largely through capitation with some fee-for-service. Half of primary care physicians are private and half are employed or salaried.
• Hospitals are mostly county owned and the hospital-based physicians are generally salaried.

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