Study finds Sweden's universal health care outperforms Canada despite similar spending
A new analysis shows Swedes experience better access to care than Canadians, with faster treatment and lower rates of unmet medical needs.
What to know
- Sweden achieves better health-care access than Canada (2% vs. 9.1% of patients with unmet medical needs due to wait times) while spending similar amounts per capita.
- Sweden's model requires all patients—including those with private insurance—to contribute to the public system through income taxation, creating a unified funding base.
- The study suggests Canada could improve outcomes by examining how other jurisdictions structure their universal health-care systems.
Residency placement shortages, not medical school capacity, are the real bottleneck limiting physician supply.
-
“The bottleneck isn't so much the school space as the available placements for residency programs. It is useless to increase the number of graduates without increasing the number of residencies first.”
Weary_Swan_8152 · Reddit ↗
European health systems succeed partly by treating medical professionals as public service workers with salaries comparable to teachers and firefighters.
-
“Over there health professionals are considered same as all other public service workers like teachers and firefighters and have similar salaries (adjusted for amount of education they need).”
kobemustard · Reddit ↗
Canada's health system is overwhelmed by multiple compounding crises including long wait times, addiction/fentanyl overload, and geographic constraints.
-
“You're lucky if it was only 8 hours. My wife tried it a few weeks back and it was over 12. We ended up going to emergency.”
WhatEvil · Reddit ↗
Study author Health system researcher
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
-
2
Commentator advocates for cross-jurisdictional policy learning on health care
A Mastodon user responds to the study, suggesting Canadian policymakers should examine how other countries structure their health systems and consider what lessons apply domestically.
“Policy discussions ought to include more consideration of what lessons we can draw from the successes and failings of systems in other jurisdictions.”
— mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca -
M
Sweden and Canada have universal health-care but access better for Swedes https:// nationalpost.com/news/canada/s weden-consistently-outperforms-canada-on-universal-health-care-despite-similar-spending-new-study Policy discussions ought to include more consideration of what lessons we can draw from the successes and failings of systems in other…
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
-
I mean we have roughly four times the population but 22 times the land size. The problem is that the GTA is only a part of Canada, not the entire thing.
-
If maybe they didn't have all the fentanyl pouring in from the US, which with other addictions is overloading the health system......
-
-
1
Study reveals Sweden outperforms Canada on health-care access and outcomes
National Post publishes analysis of a new study comparing universal health-care systems in Sweden and Canada. Despite similar per-capita spending, Sweden achieves faster access to care and lower rates of unmet medical needs.
“In Sweden, privately insured patients continue to contribute to the public system through income taxation. They do not opt out financially.”
— Study author -
1 outlet first by National Post, 5d ago · read ↗
-
From what I've heard from premed students (some of them family), that the bottleneck isn't so much the school space as the available placements for residency programs. It is useless to increase the number of graduates without increasing the number of residencies first. These residencies are also the intake path for licensing of international…
2 more of the top 3 · 5 posts in this stretch
-
I always make this point after having lived in europe. Over there health professionals are considered same as all other public service workers like teachers and firefighters and have similar salaries (adjusted for amount of education they need).
-
Well that's not net. You have to pay for your office and supplies. After taxes and what not it's likely 100k net for a family doctor and 250 net for a surgeon.
-
What people are saying 2 voices from 1 site · best of 8 · verbatim
- Sep 18
-
In 2024, wait times leading to unmet medical needs affected two per cent of Swedes, compared with 9.1 per cent of Canadians
-
You're lucky if it was only 8 hours. My wife tried it a few weeks back and it was over 12. We ended up going to emergency.