Web-economic-crisis-health-systems-and-health-web

Denmark
Andreas Rudkjøbing and Karsten Vrangbæk
Economic trends
• Real per capita GDP in Denmark contracted in 2009 but returned to
positive growth in 2010; however, the economy was sluggish in 2011.
Before the crisis the government had run a budget surplus, but there have
been repeated years of deficit from 2009 to 2011. Government spending
as a share of GDP is consistently the highest in Europe, while 10-year
bond rates have dropped and are among the lowest in Europe.
• Health spending forms a significant portion of government spending
and the government is the primary source of funding; per capita growth
slowed from 8.6% in 2009 to 2.0% in 2010 (Denmark: Fig. 1).
• Denmark Fig 2 gives the trends in per capita spending on health.
Policy responses
Changes to public funding for the health system
• In 2009, budgets were exceeded across the public sector.
• The government pledged to allocate an extra DKK 5 billion to the health
sector in 2011–2013 (2010), enabling continued growth in regional public
spending on health care, which rose from 67% of total spending on health
in 2007 to 75% in 2011, while total spending on health declined in 2010
and 2011.
• Tax relief for corporate purchase of VHI was abolished (2011).
• A budget law limited the government's structural deficit to 0.5% of GDP
and established binding expenditure ceilings, effective from 2014, for state,
regions and municipalities, although the ceilings exclude unemployment
benefits, cash benefits and public investments (2012).
• Taxes on saturated fat and sugars introduced in 2011 (not earmarked for
health) were abolished because of increasing cross-border trade with (especially)
Germany, which limited their effect on public health (2013).
Changes to health coverage
Population (entitlement)
• No response reported.