Editing Universal health care (section)

===Denmark===
All [[Danish]] citizens have the [[rights|right]] to free treatment from general practitioners, specialists and public hospitals. Depending on personal income, it may also be possible to get financial support from the municipality for other health-related costs.

About 1.8 million Danish citizens are also members of ''Sygeforsikringen danmark'' (Health Insurance Denmark), a private mutual insurance company, which offers refunds of up to 85% on expenses not generally covered by the public health insurance, such as certain types of medicine, eyeglasses and dental care.

Government expenses for the public health care system amounts to ca. 14 billion, or about 2500 [[USD]] per citizen, per year. The system as a whole generally functions well, but is however plagued by certain structural problems that lead to inefficiency and dissatisfaction in certain sectors. 

As a result of the 2001-2011 Liberal/Conservative government's not-so-subtle attempt at [[starve the beast|starving the beast]], the private health-care sector in Denmark has expanded quite a bit in the later years, and the sale of private health insurance have been steadily rising. In 2010 it was forwarded that the then-prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, an [http://youtu.be/XcxKIJTb3Hg?t=1m57s avid admirer of the American health care system], had, in his period as Minister of Health, deliberately over-paid the private hospitals in Denmark in order to help them out-compete the public hospitals.<ref>[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitiken.dk%2Findland%2Fpolitik%2Fpolitikfakta%2FECE1071850%2Fderfor-er-sagen-vigtig%2F This is why we have National Audit Offices.]</ref>