Priority setting in Swedish health care: are the politicians ready?

Resource allocation in public health care principally involves politicians, administrators, and physicians. They all have their different roles, agendas and ambitions when it comes to how public health care resources should be spent. Previous studies on attitudes among health-care stakeholders have mainly focused on views and preferences among clinical decision-makers, while less attention has been paid to the views of health care politicians.

The study aimed to investigate if the health care politicians' views on priority setting and decision-making in health care differed from other stakeholder groups.

The study was based on a questionnaire conducted among health care politicians, administrators, and physicians in four county councils in Southern Sweden.

The findings show significant differences between the politicians and the other two groups in their views on health-care resources, financing, priority setting and decision-making.

The findings could, at least partly, be explained by the special situation it means for the politicians to be forced to be re-elected every fourth year to stay in power.