health insurance in sweden

May 8, 2025

62 5 minutes read

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 th

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 helps the youtube algorithm and shows our video to more people, and if you want to see more videos comparing the us to Sweden or our life in Sweden, please click the subscribe button. And finally if you have any questions about healthcare in Sweden.