To ensure a minimum healthcare level, and to ensure that the resources are used appropriately, the Swedish government allocates resources to the needed services. For example: vaccines for flu shots for people at low risks and for foreign travels are paid by individuals but the vaccines for the elderly and for infants are given free of charge. Moreover, the government ensures that it does not pay for abuse of the system and it contain costs, by holding all unnecessary benefits.
The organization of the Swedish universal healthcare system facilitates universal coverage for its citizens. The system is organized in three levels to ensure provision of healthcare to citizens at different levels. At the national level, the Ministry of health and social affairs is involved with the healthcare legislation and it ensures that the national legislation is complied with by overseeing the lower levels of the government.
At the same level, the Socialstyrelsen establishes professional and operational standards and it plays the role of health safety net by assisting individuals who can not pay the cost. The Federal County Council advocates for the healthcare organization in the level and it ensures corporation with the councils towards provision of universal healthcare to all, it offers guidance, presents research findings and works on behalf of the councils in contract negotiations.
At the regional level, the county councils delivers healthcare to their residents thus decentralizing healthcare. At the local level, the municipalities educate and provide childcare and long-term care for disabled and the elderly. The unintended consequences of the universal coverage which are also its disadvantages include abuse and overuse of the generous system, and increased waiting time. In Sweden these are not issues as they have been dealt with appropriately. Conclusion The proposed universal healthcare is not beneficial to the United States and it will not work.
The universal coverage that could have facilitated the access to universal healthcare in the United States as it is in Sweden is limited by social status and unemployment as evidenced by the correlations of income inequality, income, and education with health outcomes. Sweden enjoys the effective universal healthcare system that is accessed by all because the healthcare coverage is not related to the social class or the income level of the citizens thus Sweden is not exposed to inequality in healthcare access.
All Swedes are insured while forty five million Americans are not insured. The publicly centralized system in Sweden contributes to more concise and clearer organization of the system. With the elaborate mix of private and public healthcare in the United States, the current system is more of a tangled web than a healthcare system meaning that to establish a universal system could be worse than the current system.
Considering the healthcare system in the United Sates from a rationalist perspective and through a cost-benefit analysis, the Swedish healthcare system is far much ahead of the United States as it pays more and in turn receives less indicating double loss. In any case, the benefits from a healthcare system should be directly proportional to the resources invested a fact that has never been the case in the Unites States for the long time that the national healthcare system has been applied.
It follows that establishing the proposed universal healthcare system will either be similar in outcome or even worse because it is new. Otherwise if a system that had many years and numerous reforms to improve the outcome particularly the quality of the service to all has failed to payoff, how insignificant will a new system be? The Swedish system is at a better position as the child mortality rate is lower and the life expectancy is longer, all at a significantly lower cost.