The privatization of the health system, and its funding has accelerated for the past twenty years in Sweden, calling into question the principle of a universal model.
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In France, Camilla Läckberg is known for his detective novels, sold at nearly 30 million copies in sixty countries. In Sweden, this influencer with 296,000 followers on Instagram, a graduate of the Göteborg business school, is also a formidable businesswoman, with multiple interests. Thus in December 2019 it announced, with great advertising reinforcement, its foray into the health sector, with the opening of a private clinic, Hedda Care, in Stockholm, reserved for women.
In a few days, this project has become the symbol of all the excesses of a two -speed health system, more and more distant from the universal model which has made the pride of the Swedes. Because the polar queen clinic, installed in the chic district of Stureplan, is reserved for a very special audience: that of patients who have subscribed to private health insurance, capable of covering the exorbitant rate of consultations.
In 2000, around 100,000 Swedes had taken out private health insurance. Today, they are seven times more, in a country of 10 million inhabitants. In 60 % of cases, insurance is paid by the employer. According to the organization of Swedish insurers Svensk Försäkring, the price can vary from 300 to 600 crowns on average per month. The advantage in the event of health problems: the possibility of obtaining a consultation quickly, by avoiding the long queues
opening to competition from medical offices
Nothing exceptional so far. Except that in Sweden, a large majority of private clinics, in contact with insurance companies, are also under contract with the regions, responsible for health, and therefore largely funded by taxpayers’ money. However, if most establishments deny it, several journalistic surveys have revealed in recent years that patients with private insurance generally obtained a priority.
“This goes against the health law, which says that care must be provided according to needs,” says John Lapidus, professor of economics at the University of Gothenburg. This specialist in Swedish welfare state criticizes a privatization “which is gradually creating a team A and a team B in the health sector”. It denounces a system that bites its tail: “The more privatized the health sector is, the more it uses private funding, the more insurance develops, the more pressure there is to open private clinics.”
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