The Government is supporting the regions this year with three billion kronor in a targeted grant, known as a sector grant, to help them cope with temporarily increased cost increases due to inflation.
Now, the Government is proposing a sector grant also for 2025, but at two billion kronor. Even though inflation has now fallen, the Government believes that support is needed since it takes time for the regions' economies to recover.
This is to help the regions cope with the consequences of inflation, says Minister of Health Acko Ankarberg (KD).
Lower Costs
Minister of Finance Elisabeth Svantesson (M) points out that since inflation is now being fought, one can see improvements in the regions' economies ahead, although different regions differ. The Minister states that the regions' pension costs are expected to decrease by 25 billion kronor.
This year, the regions received temporary additions of nine billion kronor in total in both targeted grants and temporarily increased general state grants. If there will be temporarily increased general state grants also in 2025, the Minister of Finance does not want to answer today.
In the upcoming budget proposal for 2025, an additional one billion kronor is also proposed for the regions to create more hospital beds and shorten healthcare queues. The grant is performance-based, which means that regions need to show results to receive it.
Lack of Capacity
There are also previously decided investments in increased healthcare capacity in 2025. According to the Government, they amount to a total of 7.5 billion kronor, including the new billion-kronor addition.
We have too low healthcare capacity, both for regular healthcare and for situations where we need to increase our preparedness, so we lack that capacity, says Ankarberg.
In addition, the Government wants to invest an additional 100 million kronor in 2025 to establish a national healthcare coordination service that will find available healthcare capacity in the country to reduce healthcare queues in other parts of the country. In total, the Government is investing 250 million kronor in the national healthcare coordination service in 2025.
