‘Socialist’ Nordic Countries Are Actually Moving Toward Private Health Care
Despite what Sanders says, the Nordic countries are not socialist, but highly taxed market economies. In the past their citizens didn't mind high taxes because they were almost completely homogeneous. The migrant crisis is changing that. And to make matters worse, the new people are adding to the welfare rolls, not adding to tax revenues (never mind the alien culture for this thread).
Read the rest of the article at the link.“Medicare for All,” the prominent socialized medicine proposal in the United States, is most similar to the Canadian system in which providers bill the regional office administering the program.
In Medicare for All, there would be no cost-sharing schemes and all coverage would be comprehensive, including prescription drugs, dental, vision, and other services deemed necessary by the secretary of health and human services.
The Scandinavian systems are similar to Medicare for All in the respect that they use regional offices to administer reimbursements to providers.
Yet they differ in critical ways: They employ cost-sharing for certain services, they are less comprehensive in their coverage, and they allow for private health insurance plans to complement or supplement the government system to cover out-of-pocket expenses and to circumvent wait times or rationed access to specialists.
These are preciselythe things Medicare for All would abolish. It’s intriguing that whilesocialists in America would rush to nationalize the health care system,Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes are all gradually increasing their use of privatehealth insurance.
Between 2006 and 2016, the portion of the population covered by private insurance increased by 4% in Sweden, 7% in Norway, and 22% in Denmark.
The increases in Sweden and Norway are modest but noteworthy, considering that most out-of-pocket payments have a relatively low annual limit.
Private plans in Sweden and Norway are mainly designed to supplement the government-run plan.
In addition to covering out-of-pocket costs, these plans also guarantee prompt access to specialists or elective procedures, which the state plans often fail to provide.
Denmark also allows “complementary” insurance plans, which cover services that are partially or not at all covered by the national system, including dental and vision services.
This growing European interest in private health insurance typically stems from dissatisfaction with the state-run systems, which often provide poor or incomplete coverage and long wait times.