Sweden 's The Swedish Health System

Universal Healthcare sounds appealing, but it actually lowers the quality and quantity of healthcare services that are rendered to patients, thus downgrading the healthcare system as a whole.  Not having to pay, with everyone having coverage leads to longer wait times for medical service and many people overusing health care services. Implementation of Universal Healthcare in the United States would lead to a detrimental crippling of the nation’s health system. For those countries that have implemented Universal Healthcare or a system similar to it, all or most aspects of the coverage such as cost and care is generally provided by and tightly controlled by the government, a public-sector committee, or employer-based programs, with most of the funding essentially coming from tax revenues or budget cuts in other areas of spending. This paper will conclude with comparing the US healthcare system to others and how the US has one of the most advanced systems in the world.

beginning of Sweden’s long history of providing medical care to all. In 1946, Sweden adopted a national health insurance program called The National Health Insurance Act. This act called for coverage for all citizens funded mainly by the government through local income tax revenue with control being in the hands of county governments. This includes providing dental care up until a person is 20. Not ideal, yet more than the United States government has been willing to implement. So why doesn’t The United States have universal health care for it’s tax paying citizens? The United States government has developed on the back of a different psychosocial mentality in comparison to Sweden. America was built upon the disposition and belief that

The United States health care system is unique among other advanced countries. This system does not have a central governing agency, it is delivered under imperfect market conditions, there are multiple players and payers, and there is no universal health care coverage (Shi & Singh, 2015, p. 9). In a time where healthcare reform is being discussed, it is important for the United States to consider what is proactive as well as what is failing the system. That is what Sick Around The World did; the documentary compared five other countries’ (United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland) healthcare systems to see how they stacked up against the United States.

I will compare the current health care system with the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that became law on March 23, 2010.   The current system, which is being phased out between 2011 and 2018 is increasingly inaccessible to many poor and lower-middle-class people. About 47 million Americans lack health insurance, an increase of more than two million people from 2005 (Rover, 2011) the increasingly complex warfare between insurers and hospitals over who pays the bills is gobbling up a great deal of money and the end result is that the United States pays roughly twice as much per

There are many problems with healthcare in America today. One of them including the astronomical cost. According to CDC.ORG in 2007 the average person spends seven thousand four hundred dollars per year on health care alone. This rise in healthcare is extremely detrimental for families, seniors, and people of all ages. With such a high cost of insurance people are forced to make hard choices in

The United States of America is the most prosperous and free country in the world because of hard working citizens and the God-given freedoms we possess. America has contributed countless scientific and medical discoveries and accomplished feats deemed impossible by others. The wealth and progress in this country was not brought about by government intervention and supervision, but from individuals who had the freedom to do what they did best. Because of this freedom, America’s healthcare is currently unmatched anywhere in the world. Though other countries may tout free healthcare, they make it up with burdening taxes, understaffed hospitals, and incredibly long wait periods. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act puts America’s healthcare system in jeopardy of falling into the same trap. “Obamacare”, as it is referred to, moves America to a bureaucratized and overburdened system having far reaching consequences on taxpayers, professionals, and patients and should be repealed.

The single most important impetus for healthcare reform throughout recent history has been rising costs (Sultz, 2006). In the book called The healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care, Reid wrote that the nation’s health care system has become excessively expensive, ineffective, and unjust. Among the world’s developed nations, the US ranks near the bottom for healthcare access and quality. However, the US ranks at the top for health expenditure as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and average of $7,400 per person (Reid, 2010). Therefore, Americans are spending

The health care system is one of the largest industries in the nation. It employs nearly twelve and a half million people. Even though this many people are employed by health care systems, there is little to no competition between the many different systems. This results in the cost being whatever the system wants. People who are ill or

Jamira Brown(L) watches Araceli Alvarez hold Brown's 9 week old daughter, Marleigh Byrd during a visit to SwedishAmerican Health System on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016. SwedishAmerican Health System struck a new partnership with Boone County to promote new free services with moms. The hospital wants a similar partnerhsip with Winnebago County. Patients receive several free services inlcuding breastfeeding classes, individual lactation consultations, baby weigh-ins, phone support and more. ARTURO FERNANDEZ/STAFF

According to Squires and Chloe, the United States of America is considered as the greatest country in the world, with the largest economy, military powers, freedom of religion and speech, and one of the most successful democrats (2). However, the United States in the only western modernized nation that does not offer free healthcare services to all its citizens. Apparently, the costs of the healthcare services to the uninsured individuals in the US are prohibitive, where the insurance companies are interested in making higher profit margins than providing adequate health care to the insured (Squires and Chloe 4). These conditions are unexpectable and incompatible with the United States

The United States is in a period of transition in regards to healthcare. After the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more widely known as “ObamaCare”, in 2010, many dissenting politicians looked towards Europe to find critiques of the universal systems already in place. Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom were the main targets of allegations that the United States was attempting to become socialist. However, there is an alternative path to universal healthcare that may provide a better option for the United States during this time of policy reform. I argue that the United States should seek to emulate the Netherlands in implementing universal healthcare coverage for all citizens. Although the United States has attempted

The issue of the current state of healthcare system in the United States and the potential for its transformation based upon those of other systems throughout the globe are focused upon the documentary “Sick Around the World.” Within this documentary the healthcare systems of various countries, such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan, to highlight upon certain aspects within their systems that may be helpful in improving the healthcare system of the United States. In the first few minutes of the documentary, I found it astounding that our country has the most expensive healthcare costs in world, yet is ranked as 37th internationally when it comes to the quality and fairness of our system. It would seem logical that

The current state of United States’ health care system is one of the most polarizing subjects of debate among scholars and other health care professionals across the globe. This can be attributed to the fact that at one extreme end, there are some who argue that that Americans have the best system of health care in the world (MePhee, 2013). Perhaps the availability of the state-of-the-art facilities and free medical technology that have become highly symbolic of the various industries in the United States have motivated the idea of the country’s health care system being unparalleled to others. However, there is a common belief that the fight for universal health care can only be successful if its current state of health care is described as a failure in the modern era as emphasized by MePhee (2013).

The life expectancy of people in Sweden is increasing according to Sweden.se. The website provides a statistic stating “average lifespan is now 81.4 years for women and 80.3 years for men. This can be attributed in part to falling mortality rates from heart attacks and strokes. In 2016, one in five people was 65 or older. On the other hand, the number of children born in Sweden has been increasing each year since the late 1990s”. Coverage is universal in Sweden. All residents are entitled to publicly-financed health care. There is a population of 9,189,164 people in Sweden.

In addition to citizens, Sweden also has bilateral agreements with nine other countries and emergency services are provided to all patients from those countries as well as people from EU/European Economic Area countries (Anell et al, pg.59). Priority is placed on those with life threatening diseases and people with chronic diseases and disabilities, while those wanting preventive and rehab services as well as non acute and non chronic diseases have to wait.