Abstract
ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to disclose the psychological meaning structure of dentistry as a free market within the context of leading Swedish policymaking. Following the criteria for the descriptive phenomenological psychological method data was collected from leading policy makers about the experiential aspects of dentistry as a free market within the context of a welfare state. The analysis showed that dentistry as a free market was experienced as a complex business relationship between buyers and sellers that transcended the traditional dentist and patient roles. The lived experience of the proposed business transaction was based on two inherently conflicting views: the belief in the individual’s ability to make a free choice versus the understanding that all individuals in a society do not have the ability or the means necessary to make a free choice. Dentistry as a free market within a welfare state, such as Sweden, can thus be seen as a persistent attempt to hold on to a compromise between two very distinctive political ideologies.
Highlights
In Sweden, an adult patient’s right to choose his or her own dentist has never been questioned by government policymakers (Lindblom, 2004; Regeringen, 1973; Socialdepartementet, 2015). This distinguishes the dental health care section from the rest of the Swedish public health care system, even if the freedom of choice in terms of one’s dental care provider for patients has somewhat increased in recent years
There is a long tradition of social democracy in Sweden serving as the underlying political ideology of a welfare state, even though a free market has been allowed to exist parallel to it, it is controlled by the state (Åmark, 2011)
This study was attempting to answer the following research question: What is the psychological meaning of dentistry as a free market within a welfare state as seen from the context of leading policymaking? In order to answer the research question, a qualitative, phenomenological methodology, designed to explicate meanings, seemed an appropriate choice of methodology
Summary
In Sweden, an adult patient’s right to choose his or her own dentist has never been questioned by government policymakers (Lindblom, 2004; Regeringen, 1973; Socialdepartementet, 2015). Been a lack of ethical debates concerning the dilemma posed by the economic incentives for dentists in private practice, some of whom are recognized as owners of dental companies and as primary caregivers of patients and who receive subsidies for some of their activities by the taxpayers All this is in contrast to the rest of the public general health care system and public education where political discussions regarding privatization of welfare systems in Sweden have flourished (Socialdepartementet, 2016). There is little doubt that the question of dentistry as part of a free market would most likely reveal a tension between a socialist agenda of a welfare state for everybody and a liberal argument for the freedom of choice and a free market in order to assure competition which, it is argued, leads to high-quality care Such a debate could find its primary foundation within the subject matter of philosophy and medical ethics. It may be necessary to transcend politics in order to clearly see that the oral milieu is not just about cosmetics, but that this part of the body belong to medicine and to the ethics of human life
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