[octover]

As an American with a chronic condition living in Sweden I can agree with you. However the Swedish system does a lot to eliminate and streamline the system. Calling to get an appointment gets you on the phone with a nurse to triage you, so urgent things are seen urgently and non-urgent things get scheduled in. I know doctors and go to doctors in Sweden and they see drug company reps significantly less than American doctors do. They aren't allowed to meet with drug reps like happens in America. I went to a hematology/oncology clinic in the US and there was always drug reps coming and going, if they had cut that down they'd be able to see more patients, and keep their appointment times with their patients. However these doctors it turned out whored themselves out not so much for the free meals and such, but to collect as many free samples as they could so their poor patients could be given at least a partial supply of drugs they would otherwise not get.

For my particular condition a subcutaneous treatment was developed in Scandinavia and the UK. It costs half as much to treat a patient and requires no care from a nurse to administer the alternative IV. I can give myself my drugs on my own time instead of taking time off work to go into a clinic. The drug is finally making its way over the pond now, but uptake is slow. Not every person with my condition can go on the subcutaneous, but back of the envelope math says at the very least $100 million a year would be saved if all patients who could go on went on it. In addition 150,000 nurse hours would be freed up as well each year.

Let's not forget the personal savings of time being on the phone with the insurance company. In the year before I moved to Sweden I lost roughly a week of work to being on the phone with the insurance company cause things weren't billed right or they just decided that I didn't need my IV anymore or getting them to pay for things they pre-authorized, but decided to deny when the bill showed up. I have spent absolutely no time discussing those sort of things in the last 3.5 years I've lived in Sweden. That's time I spend earning money and paying taxes, which seems to be win-win.