I'm an American living in Sweden with my Swedish fiance. And one of the topics that I get asked
most about from my American friends and family is about the Swedish healthcare system. And in
a recent video comparing us Sweden which you can watch here. Click the link here to watch it. We
received a lot of questions and comments about what the differences with the health care system
is Sweden versus america. Yeah and when I was deciding to move to Sweden from the united states
one of the things that I was most curious about was the Swedish healthcare system. So
we thought that we would create a video comparing the Swedish healthcare system
versus the American one. We'll explain how the Swedish healthcare system works, the costs,
the pros and cons, and our experiences in both the American and Swedish healthcare systems. And
finally we'll let you decide which one you prefer. To start I think it's pretty fair to say that most
Americans are not satisfied with healthcare in the united states or not satisfied with the costs.
In fact 6 out of 10 Americans say the health care system is in a crisis state or has major problems.
I mean that's a lot if you think about it, six out of ten. And of course like everything
else in the us right now, it's really different between the two political parties. Republicans
are slightly more satisfied but still only 44% or about four out of ten republicans are satisfied
with the u.s. Healthcare costs. So it's very clear that healthcare costs in the united states
are just not affordable for most people, or at least that's the way Americans perceive it.
What's interesting is the majority of Americans believe that the healthcare should
be a responsibility of the government. Yeah that was actually really surprising to me as well. So
56 or a majority of Americans say that yes the government should be responsible for
health insurance so government responsibility for health insurance. Isn't that socialism or
socialist medicine. Well I guess it sort of is. But it's not good to use that term because
Americans are so spooked by the word socialist or socialism. I do not like the idea of that. I
don't want the government picking what I can and cannot do. If everybody has something for free
who's going to pay for it? Okay what if people pay for it by taxes? What do you think of that
well that's going to increase. Do you like to pay taxes? And it kind of makes sense right
if you think about it. The u.s was locked in a 40-year cold war with the ussr after world war ii
that generation and even my generation is sort of indoctrinated from the media, from their schools,
from culture, that anything socialist or socialism is bad. We are living in an era marked by the
growth of socialism, it's basic godless philosophy lying dirty it's goal of world conquest it's an
international criminal conspiracy. So is Swedish healthcare socialist and if so how does it work?
Swedish healthcare is universal and decentralized. All residents have access to healthcare.
Responsibility lies with the regional councils and municipal governments. Medical care is
handled mainly through local health centers called board vårdcentrals. Am I pronouncing that right?
Yeah vårdcentral and that's basically the first place you go and visit when you have some sort of
medical issue. You go to vårdcentral for issues like sore throat, urinary infection, allergy,
dizziness, back pain and chronic illness. The vårdcentral is where most people go first to
see a general practitioner and if you need a referral. Or what in Sweden they call a remiss
the practitioner there can refer you to a specialist such as like a dermatologist a stomach
doctor, a head doctor. And so on all right so how much does all this cost? One common misconception
is that healthcare in Sweden is free, which of course not true. Yeah we pay taxes to the local
government which funds the health care. That's a topic for a different video. We won't get into it,
but I can firmly say that when I was living in california I was paying a very similar tax rate
to what I am in Sweden now. So it's not actually really that expensive. Medical fees are capped
and have a ceiling. Prescription drugs have a fee cap and patients never pay more than
285 us dollars in a single year. The average cost of a primary care visit is about 18 to 36 dollars.
And the cost of a specialist including mental health services costs around 26 dollars to 45
the cost of hospitalization including pharmaceuticals cannot exceed 12 dollars a day
healthcare services including immunizations and cancer screenings are completely free and have no
co-payments additionally medical services are free for all the people under the age of 18. So what
about dental costs?dental costs is the thing that actually surprised me the most because in the us
it's very expensive. And as we'll see later most people in the us don't actually visit the dentist
more than once per year. In Sweden 100 of dental care for persons under the age of 23 is completely
free, and when a person turns the age of 23 the government pays them annual subsidies of about 72%
for dental expenses. And the prices of dental work in Sweden are not that expensive. So for
example getting a tooth removed is about $115. Cleaning and a root canal can cost around $380.
So let's say you have a sore throat and go to the vårdcentral for a checkup.
$18. And while you're there you also get an immunization and a cancer screening, both
are free. The next day you go on a ski trip and you're going downhill really fast you lose control
you run into a tree. And you get horribly horribly injured. You need to be airlifted via helicopter
to a hospital. Costs $130. You spend five days in the hospital which is about $60 dollars for
the total stay. The doctor prescribes you medicine that you need to take daily for a year. Well the
absolute maximum cost for that would be $285 us dollars. After you leave the hospital you need
some work on your teeth because you skied into a tree. The dental work cost twenty thousand
kronor which is about $2400 us dollars but you are reimbursed eighty five percent. Which means that
that would be $2055 back. Making the dentist visit only $366 in total. So for the hospitalization,
the airlift, the pharmaceuticals, the cancer screening, the immunization,
the dental work you're looking at a grand total of $855 us dollars and that's pretty shocking.
I mean that is not with any private insurance that is just the government state-run healthcare.
And for example to compare apples to apples in the us and airlift is something like $20000 US dollars
after insurance. Before we go any further we just like to say that if you're enjoying this video you
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please click the subscribe button. And finally if you have any questions about healthcare in Sweden,
or have any comments about it, leave them in the comments section below. We read every single
comment and try to respond to as many as possible. So how does this compare with the USA healthcare?
Well healthcare in the united states is very complicated and it differs from state to state,
but generally how it works is employers sponsor health insurance plans on behalf of their
employees, and the employer usually pays around 85% with the employee paying the remaining 15%
and it's usually just deducted straight out of their paycheck. And insurance companies
negotiate fees with medical providers like hospitals or clinics. So if you have a certain
insurance and you go to this hospital it can be more expensive because it's out of network,
if you go to this hospital it's cheaper, and it differs by doctor. So it's extremely complicated
in the cost very widely and i've actually had the exact same surgery in the united states and in
Sweden so I can sort of vouch for both systems. So I have a punctured eardrum so I had to have
corrective surgery on it in the united states, and it cost me about $1500 US dollars with my
insurance. So my insurance paid for most of it and then I have to pay $1500 US dollars.
Uh by the way that doctor screwed up the surgery and actually made the problem
worse. So I had to have another surgery when I came to Sweden, and that surgery cost me
$30 US dollars. And that was a full surgery where I was put to sleep I had anesthetics. I was in
the hospital for a full day. $30 dollars that's nothing. Yeah it's good it was it was mind-blowing
I was expecting to get sticker stock on my way out when I had to pay, but it was like $30.
That's crazy but if it's so cheap. It must be terrible quality right? That's the argument you
hear most common is that socialized medicine or universal health care or government medicine is
inferior to the American system, and while I will say that the united states does have the
most innovative and best health care in the world, for example the the top three ranked hospitals in
the world are in the united states, and 20 out of the top 100 hospitals are in the united states,
and you know the most powerful people in the world, the global leaders, the heads of state,
they travel to the united states to seek medical care when something goes wrong.
So the united states I would say the the best medical care in the world is in the united states
for sure, they have the best specialist, the best surgeons, and so on I think is generally true.
But then you think about how many that is accessible too right, it's only accessible to
like the very powerful. Right that's the thing, so we can compare the health of the Swedish
population versus the health of the American population by looking at charts from the OECD.
So the OECD tracks data from 37 developed countries that are considered high income
and have a high human development index. So here's a chart showing the population covered for a core
set of health care services and what's really quite shocking is that 8% percent or about 27.5
million Americans, so almost about three times the population of Sweden, don't have healthcare. So
I think medical care or the lack of medical care is what is contributing to inequality
in the united states. When people can't afford health insurance and then when they do get sick
and they're hit with these debilitating, crippling, catastrophic medical bills.
It throws them into debt or you know throws their family into poverty. And
I really truly think that's what one of the reasons why you're seeing a widening inequality
wealth gap in the united states is because some people have health insurance and can afford to
go to the doctor and others do not. So one way to measure this is by looking at catastrophic health
spending and basically what this measures is the percent of households that had to
make a healthcare payment that was considered catastrophic to their financial well-being.
And as you can see in the united states 7.4% of households in the last year made a catastrophic
health care payment and that compares to Sweden with only 1.8% of households. And what I think is
really jarring is that there is a big difference between the richest households and the poorest
households so for example the united states if you go to gofundme.com, one third of all the campaigns
on there are for raising money for health related things. Yeah it's so sad like all the kids needing
help and you know they're not gonna survive if they don't get this money, and the parents can't
pay for it. It's so sad. Another sort of proxy to measure health between countries is looking at
the life expectancy at birth and as you can see here on this chart in the united states
the life expectancy is around 78 years old, and in Sweden, which is above average, it's 82 and
a half years old. Like I said earlier a lot of Americans don't actually visit the dentist each
year by looking at the chart you can see that only 41% of Americans had been to a dentist
in 2014 and in Sweden it was 79%. Yeah it looks like Sweden and the united states come
pretty close on the number of adults that smoke on a daily basis, you can see that Sweden has about
10% and the united states is about 10.5%. So this is the shared population of dependent drinkers and
wow usa is number four behind Latvia, hungary and russia. And Sweden is what is that like 10th place
between slovak republic and lithuania. So as you can see in many ways swedes are actually a
lot healthier than Americans. In fact Sweden was ranked the sixth healthiest country in the world
by bloomberg and the us was ranked all the way down in number 34.
That is I mean you think of the united states as being the richest country in the world, surely
they have the best healthcare for most people? And it's all the way down to number 34. But what
about the wait times that is something you often hear when you talk about universal healthcare.
Wait times in countries with universal healthcare can be much longer compared to those in the us.
For example for that ear surgery I had here in Sweden, I did wait I think it was like four to
six months to get the surgery. Yeah whereas in the us I could schedule and have in a few weeks.
And what I think a lot of people don't realize is that you can buy private health insurance
in Sweden. It exists and I think it's like one in ten or something. In Sweden one in
ten people do not rely on Sweden's universal health care but instead purchase private health
insurance. While the costs for private plans vary, one can expect to pay around 4000 kronor
which is around $435 us dollars annually for one person on average. So what do you think about
Swedish healthcare versus American healthcare? It's hard to say because
if you live in the us and you make a lot of money and you have a good health insurance,
that will pay for everything mostly, but to me the one major thing that i'm like afraid of
moving to the us is, if we don't have the best health insurance. And whereas in Sweden I know
that I will always be protected. I know that if one of us gets sick, we won't be able to work, or
we don't need to sell a house. Yeah I think you nailed it on the head. I mean I agree I think
for the broader population for the general public the Swedish system is clearly much better.
Whereas if you are you know fortunate enough to have a high-paying job in the USA and
have really good health insurance, then I would say that system is probably better,
but again for the majority of the people for the whole I think the Swedish system
is fair and works. And like we said you can always purchase private health insurance in Sweden if you
don't want the government health care. Yeah so I kind of wish more Americans would consider
universal health care coverage. We'll see if it ever happens. It probably won't probably won't.