‘Socialist’ Swedes Take to Private Health Insurance

Sweden, a country famous for a welfare
state that has actually been trimmed back substantially in recent
years, is experiencing a phenomenon unlikely to bring cheer to
those Americans who think the answer to Obamacare’s problems is

more government involvement in medicine. Tired of long
waits and inadequate care, Swedes increasingly purchase private
health insurance policies to gain access to the care the state
can’t provide.

According to Sweden’s insurance trade industry organization,

Svensk Försäkring:

The number of private health care insurance policies has
increased in recent years. In 2011 about 440,000 people had private
health care insurance. Most of these people have their policy paid
by their employer.

The trend continues, with the English-language The Local

reporting last week that “One in ten Swedes now has private
health insurance.” The site also says “More than half a million
Swedes now have private health insurance,” though that seems to
refer to the growth in the number of policies, with many more of
the country’s 9.5 million people actually covered by private
insurance.

Why the growth? From
The Local:

“It’s quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an
operation in two weeks’ time rather than having to wait for a
year,” privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on
Friday. “It’s terrible that I, as a young person, don’t feel I can
trust the health care system to take care of me.”

In a separate article about Sweden’s shrinking welfare state,
The Local also
noted that “visitors are sometimes surprised to learn about
year-long waiting times for cancer patients.”

Reason’s Matthew Feeney
noted in June that Sweden’s welfare-state period was something
of a brief interlude.

Up until the 1970s Sweden had strong market-oriented policies in
place that increased wealth and standards of living thanks to
reforms introduced at the end of the 19th century. These Swedish
market reforms were wide ranging, impacting both business and law.
Property rights were enforced, the government was limited,
regulation was light, and a private banking sector flourished.

The cradle-to-grave services implemented in the 1970s proved
unaffordable starting in the 1990s.

In the years following the 1990s crisis, Sweden has deregulated
whole industries and encouraged the privatization of public
services. One Swedish hospital is listed on the stock exchange
while the country’s education system is the most market-friendly in
the word, with a popular voucher program and for-profit
schools.

“Income tax in Sweden is now lower than in France, Belgium and
Denmark,” says
The Local, “and public spending as a share of GDP has declined
from a record 71.0 percent in 1993 to 53.3 percent last year.”

And, of course, Swedes are turning to private medicine to escape
the long lines and poor service of the government health system
that has been unable to deliver what it once promised.