Who has health insurance?
Health insurance is available in many different occupational categories and salary positions.
Most insurances are sold in male-dominated industries such as construction, manufacturing, and more.
One effect of this is that more men (64 percent) than women (36 percent) have health insurance.
The insurance is most common among those of working age, ie between 25 and 64 years.
55% of those covered by health insurance have an income below the limit for paying state tax.
Insurance is more common among smaller companies with up to 30 employees. It is most common in companies with up to 4 employees.
Health insurance is spread throughout the country and is by far the most common in Stockholm County,
Västra Götaland County, and Skåne County.
Health insurance measured as a proportion of the gainfully employed
population is most common in Jämtland County, closely followed by Stockholm and Västra Götaland.
The insured are in all training groups. Those who have health insurance used to lesser extent sickness benefits
and sickness compensation from the tax-financed security systems.
How to buy health insurance?
As a private person, you can choose to buy health insurance directly from an insurance company.
However, it is more common to buy it through your union, given that it offers health insurance as part of its membership offer.
Within SACO and TCO, several unions offer an opportunity to take out health insurance.
If you are a member of, for example, SACO, you can buy insurance for SEK 400 per month if you are 50 years old.
When you use the insurance, you pay a deductible for each damage of SEK 750.
The most common is that employers buy health insurance for all their employees.
The premium is then paid by the employer and varies depending on the number of employees and their age.
The premium is usually between SEK 300-500 per month and employee,
but it varies depending on the scope of the insurance and whether it is with or without a deductible.
The premium is higher if the insurance is without a deductible.
The employee is taxed on benefits for 60 percent of the premium paid by the employer.
The remaining 40 percent refers to preventive or rehabilitative measures.
They are tax-free according to the law as they are part of the employer’s responsibility according to the Work Environment Act.
Benefit taxation means that if the premium amounts to SEK 500, the employee is taxed on benefits for SEK 300.
With a marginal tax of 30 percent, it will be SEK 90 per month.
With a marginal tax of 50 percent, it will be SEK 150 per month.
How is care financed and performed in Sweden?
In Sweden, it is the regions that have the main responsibility for offering health and medical care.
The municipalities are responsible for certain care, for example for people who live in certain special forms of housing,
provided that the municipality has agreed with the region to take over such responsibility.
The region’s responsibility as principal covers all care provided in the region,
regardless of whether the region performs it under its own auspices or
whether the region has handed it over to a private care provider.
The regions have the right to levy taxes and the regions’
health care is financed for the most part by tax funds and to a lesser extent by fees.
The regions have relatively large freedom to organize the health care for
which they are responsible and can choose to conduct all care under their own auspices
or hand over the execution via an agreement to another actor, for example, a private care provider.
The extent of the care provided by private care providers based on agreements with the region varies between the regions.
The Stockholm Region,
the Skåne Region, and the Västra Götaland region, for example,
buy more care from private care providers compared with other regions.
The share amounts to about a quarter of the total expenditure on health care in these three regions.
The care provided within health insurance is mainly about planned specialist care.
In order for an insurance company to be able to offer certain care to its customers, there must be a private care provider,
in Sweden or abroad, that provides such care.
The insurance companies sign cooperation agreements with private care providers
based on expertise, capacity, price, and quality to carry out the care included in the insurance.
An insurance company can have agreements with several hundred different care providers to cover as many specialist areas as
possible throughout the country.
Care provided by the region under its own auspices or performed on behalf of the region through agreements
with private care providers, is not paid for by private health insurance but by the region.
However, health insurance can reimburse patient fees that arise in connection with care provided by or on behalf of the region.
The care is provided by private care providers and the care, care planning,
and administrative costs are financed in their entirety through insurance premiums of just over SEK 3 billion per year.
In the last ten years, the health care paid by private health insurance has amounted to
just under one percent of the total expenditure on health care in Sweden.
