Total Health Spending, USD PPP Per Capita (2019): $5,782

(Note: “Health spending measures the final consumption of health care goods and services (i.e. current health expenditure) including personal health care (curative care, rehabilitative care, long-term care, ancillary services and medical goods) and collective services (prevention and public health services as well as health administration), but excluding spending on investments. Health care is financed through a mix of financing arrangements including government spending and compulsory health insurance (“Government/compulsory”) as well as voluntary health insurance and private funds such as households’ out-of-pocket payments, NGOs and private corporations (“Voluntary”). This indicator is presented as a total and by type of financing (“Government/compulsory”, “Voluntary”, “Out-of-pocket”) and is measured as a share of GDP, as a share of total health spending and in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs).”

Source: OECD (2021), Health spending (indicator). doi: 10.1787/8643de7e-en (Accessed on 20 January 2021).

Current Health Expenditure Per Capita (USD) (2016): $5,711
Current Health Expenditure as Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (%) (2016): 10.9%
Domestic General Government Health Expenditure as Percentage of General Government Expenditure (%) (2016): 18.5%
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 10% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 25% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA

Source: World health statistics 2019: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

Annual household out-of-pocket payment, constant (2016) PPP, per capita (USD) (2016): $821

Source: Global Health Expenditure Database. Health expenditure series. Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed Nov. 15, 2019.

Out-of-Pocket Spending as Share of Final Household Consumption (%) (2017): 3.8%

Source: OECD (2019), Health at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/4dd50c09-en.

“Sweden allocated 11.0% of its GDP to health spending in 2017, the third highest share among EU countries and well above the EU average of 9.8% (Figure 8). Sweden also has the third highest spending on health per person among EU countries, at EUR 3,872 in 2017 (adjusted for differences in purchasing power).

“Public expenditure accounts for 84%, which is considerably above the EU average (79%). Most of the remaining health spending (15%) is paid directly out of pocket by households, while voluntary health insurance only accounts for about 1% of health spending (see Section 5.2). However, the number of people with private voluntary health insurance coverage is increasing rapidly, as this facilitates quicker access to consultation and care than using the public services.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Sweden: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“The largest category of health spending in Sweden is outpatient care (including home care), which accounted for just over one-third (34 %) of all health spending in 2017 (Figure 9). This reflects efforts over the past two decades to contain spending on hospital care while developing outpatient care. Spending on long-term care accounted for slightly more than one-quarter (27%) of all health spending, which is over twice as high as the EU average. Inpatient care (typically provided in hospitals) accounted for 22% of all health spending, a lower share than a decade ago and lower than the current EU average (close to 30%).

“Expenditure on pharmaceuticals and medical devices takes up a smaller proportion of health spending (12%) than the EU average (18%). In Sweden, as in other EU countries, this only includes those dispensed outside hospital, not those purchased in hospital, which are reported under inpatient care (or outpatient care in hospital). The relatively low spending on pharmaceuticals dispensed outside hospital in Sweden is due partly to low prices for medicines (see Section 5.3), as well as fairly high use of generics.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Sweden: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Sweden’s health system provides universal population coverage for a broad basket of services. The majority of OOP is thus attributable to cost sharing requirements. These include co-payments for most health services adults use in Sweden, including hospitalization. Co-payments for health care visits and hospitalization vary across the 21 counties although policies have converged over time. Co-payments are differentiated to steer patients towards use of primary care during office hours. Co-payments for visits to specialist doctors without a referral are about twice as much as for a regular visit to a primary care doctor. In most counties children below age 20 are exempt from co-payments. There is a combined cap for each 12 month period determined at the national level, maximizing total co-payments for outpatient care. Deductibles, co-payments and caps for prescription drugs and dental care are determined fully at the national level. Dental care for individuals under age 22 is free. For adults, there is a deductible of SEK 1000 (€103) for prescription drugs followed by a stepwise increase in subsidies ending in a 12 months cap of SEK 2200 (€226). For dental care to adults, the deductible is SEK 3000 (€308), followed by increase in co-insurance to 85% above SEK 15,000 but without an overall cap. Additional minor changes in terms of additional subsidies for dental care to elderly were introduced in 2013. In 2009, prescription cost-sharing policy was changed such that patients now usually pay the full price for generic alternatives that are not the lowest cost generic. In 2012 cost-sharing limits on prescriptions as well as for outpatient services were increased (from SEK 1800 to SEK 2200 (€ 185–226) and SEK 900 to SEK 1100 (€ 92–113) respectively). These increased cost sharing requirements seem not to have had great impact on the average growth rate in 2004–2014, which was lower than in the previous period. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that the requirements were relatively minor and partially offset by better dental benefits.”

Rice, Thomas et al. “Revisiting out-of-pocket requirements: trends in spending, financial access barriers, and policy in ten high-income countries.” BMC health services research vol. 18,1 371. 18 May. 2018, doi:10.1186/s12913-018-3185-8.

Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and several other nations.

Page last updated May 18, 2021 by Doug McVay, Editor.