Market Reforms in Swedish Health Care: Normative Reorientation and Welfare State

Although the impact of market reforms in Swedish health care stands out as not very far-reaching in an international compari-son, it represents a route away from the features and basic values normally associated with the Swedish or Scandinavian model. Summarizing the development over the last decades, we may iden-tify signs of sustainability as well as change. Popular support for public provision and a robust institutional structure make far-reaching alterations of existing structures less feasible, although most visible changes this far — incremental though they may be — represent a change in which the normative foundations of the Swedish model are challenged