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 can help us out by clicking that like button, that
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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.
