Medical Care in Sweden

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Abstract
Sweden has created a strong medical care system as part of a broad program of social welfare. Its best feature is the equal access that all citizens have to good care by competent personnel in modern facilities. Financing is by compulsory tax-paid hospital and sickness insurance. Planning is coordinated on both county and national levels to match resources to current needs. Hospitals are regionalized, centralized, and integrated. Weak points of Swedish medical care are its impersonal aspects, the shortage of staff and usable hospital beds which create long waits for admission, lack of continuity of care, absence of choice by patients of doctors and hospitals, and high taxes. Reforms in 1970 have aggravated these problems. An improved American medical care system would adopt the good features of Swedish medical care, while avoiding the unsuccessful ones.

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