SETTING HEALTH-CARE PRIORITIES IN SWEDEN - THE POLITICIANS POINT-OF-VIEW

In this report, the results of interviews with sixty local health care politicians in southern Sweden will be presented. It is evident from the material that despite their formal responsibility, the politicians are of the opinion that other actors exert greater influence upon the allocation of resources. They do not think that health care expenditure need be extended, whereas fields such as care of the elderly and preventive medicine ought to receive extended contributions at the expense of other publicly financed activities such as general mammography and in vitro fertilization. Somewhat more than a third of the politicians hold that the goal stipulated in the Swedish Health Care Act, i.e. to provide good health and care on equal terms, has not been fulfilled. Their attitudes towards priority criteria such as personal responsibility, age, life expectancy, parenthood and productivity differ from case to case, and there is no clear-cut consensus. However, approximately half of the respondents agree wholly or partly that a person who promises to alter his or her unhealthy habits should be treated before someone who does not make such a promise. The same applies to the principle that those employed ought to be given priority in operating queues, and in consequence of this utility perspective there are also increased demands upon the physicians to take economy into consideration in treating an individual patient.