What Swedes Really Think About Their Health Care
The audience at the conference is about half Swedish, half not. The Swedish attendees are as you would expect drawn from the more elite strata of Swedish social life. Interestingly, when asked about the Swedish healthcare system, they express generally positive views - with specific comments that sound very similar to what equivalently positioned Canadians would say about Canada.
Summary:
- if a Swede gets very sick, he or she can expect a very high degree of care.
- everyday care (the strep throats and twisted ankles that send parents to the pediatrician twice a year) is done adequately, if with more waiting and fewer prescriptions than affluent Americans would expect
- the real gap in the system is the care of the chronic ailments of older age: delays for hip replacements, eye surgery, etc.
But even affluent Swedes of mostly right-of-center views find it shocking that a society could abandon a seventh of its population with no guarantee of care at all. And the thought of spending 17% of GDP to buy such leaky coverage seems to them just utterly irrational.
Swedish politics are shifting very subtly to the right. The country has what here counts as a conservative government, with avowed intentions of opening more space for private initiative, lowering taxes, and decentralizing.
UPDATE:
An answer to commenters:
Since 2008, I've posted numerous statements of the reasons that have led me to revise some of the opinions I held 20 years ago, for example here and here.
Is it really too much to ask commenters to do a 5-minute Google search before complaining that I have offered no such explanations?
Posted at 10:49am