Privatising, liberalising and dividing a welfare state without affecting universality? Debunking the myths surrounding the rapid rise of private health insurance in Sweden

Abstract

The privatisation of provision and the emerging privatisation of funding, manifested in the rapid rise of private health insurance, are the most obvious signs that the universal, Swedish health system is gradually weakened. Meanwhile, the private welfare industry creates a neoliberal Newspeak where the burdening effects of the private insurance system on public healthcare are said to be unburdening, and where every step away from the principles of a universal welfare model is said to be in line with the principles of a universal welfare model. The language spoken by the private welfare industry spills over into authorities, journalists and scholars. In this article, I discuss, problematise and partially reject two research questions – Does VHI unburden the public health care system? and Are VHI holders less supportive of funding public health care? – where the authors fail to place development in the context of increased inequality and declining tax ratio, and where they use the welfare industry's definitions invented to blur the consequences of a parallel health system.

Universal health coverage and equal access in Sweden: a century-long perspective on macro-level policy

“…However, these providers can also have contracts with the public healthcare system/the regions, to offer care and treatment funded publicly by taxes (with the public maximum waiting-time limits). This arrangement has sparked a contentious debate about whether insurance patients receive priority over publicly funded patients [ 78 , 79 ] potentially violating the principle of “healthcare on equal terms” as laid down in the Health and Medical Services Act (1982:763, updated 2017:30). Insurance companies argue that this is not the case and that private health insurance relieves the burden on the tax-funded healthcare system [ 80 ].…”

The emergence of financial capital in the health insurance business in Europe: The case of Spain in the last fifty years

“…This has also happened in Sweden, a country whose welfare model has served as a reference in studies carried out in the European framework. «The privatisation of provision and the emerging privatisation of funding, manifested in the rapid rise of private health insurance, are the most obvious signs that the universal, Swedish health system is gradually weakened», seeLapidus (2019 and2022).4 See Bulletin of the History of Medicine 94 (3) published in 2020 with Christy Ford Chapin, Beatrix Hoffman, Nancy Tomes and Patrick Wallis participating in this debate.Revista de Historia Economica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History…”