(cont. from § 10) Response to interpellation 2025/26:154 on increasing veterinary prices and lack of price transparency
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD argues that the state should not fund veterinary care as it should be a private cost for the animal owner 1 2. KD emphasizes the importance of competition, training more veterinarians, and using district veterinarians where the market is insufficient 3 1. S considers the price development to be skyrocketing and alarming due to the profit-seeking of venture capital companies 4 5. S wants to increase price transparency, investigate stops for profit-seeking, examine fixed price lists, and give Konkurrensverket more powers 5. S emphasizes that they have initiated the expansion of training places 4. KD notes that technical development contributes to higher costs 2.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! This debate has been on pause for about an hour and a half, as it is during question time. Therefore, I intend to repeat the questions that I perceived Sofia Skönnbrink asked me. It was about what the government is doing, beyond the mandate that Konkurrensverket has received from us.
Madam Speaker! One of the most important parts of the work we are doing now is to ensure that we get good competition. Sofia Skönnbrink herself expresses concerns about the competitive situation. That is what we are doing primarily now.
It is also important to note that there is free pricing on the market for veterinary care, and it is usually the animal owner who pays the entire cost themselves, privately or via their insurance. One should, however, remember that industry agreements regulating price or other conditions can conflict with competition law. Therefore, the state needs to be careful about meddling in details that we do not have full control over.
In addition to this, a supporting part, as the member very rightly pointed out, is that we have enough veterinarians. When I became responsible for the veterinary activities in Sweden, approximately 100 veterinarians were trained per year. We have now increased the training places by 45–50 percent. I believe that it is exactly 145 or 155 who are undergoing the training right now. Next year, we envision that it will have increased by 70 percent to around 170 who are undergoing the training. It is a large percentage increase and something that will be central and important.
It is also a fact that the district veterinarians play a very important role, not least for the livestock of the agricultural sector. But they can also be helpful in areas where there is not a veterinary coverage that is good enough and help even when it comes to pets. But the district veterinarians, which are a partially state-funded activity in a competitive market, should only cover where the need cannot be considered to be sufficiently met with the help of the market.
In recent decades, not least the shortage of animal health personnel and the state's commitments to ensure a well-functioning organization during, for example, outbreaks of infectious animal diseases, have led to a number of challenges. Therefore, in June 2024, we gave a mandate to a letter investigator to assist the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Infrastructure in investigating the design of an accessible, sustainable, and effective veterinary preparedness. The mandate was reported on August 31, 2025. It is now out for consultation, until tomorrow actually. I look forward very much to reviewing all the consultation responses that have been submitted.
There are three different parts I can mention in response to the questions.
Sofia Skönnbrink (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
We agree that the shortage of veterinarians is acute and that it is an issue that needs to be solved. Expanding the training places at SLU is an important step for us to get more veterinarians in Sweden. It is an initiative that we initiated in government. We started with this expansion. It is pleasing that the government is taking it further.
District veterinarians are a very important part of Swedish veterinary care, not least regarding the mobile operations for agricultural animals, just as Peter Kullgren mentions. There is certainly a possibility to have a pure district veterinarian debate at a later time, Madam Speaker. But today I would like to focus on precisely the price development within Swedish veterinary care and the private actors, the private equity firms, who have bought up large parts of the market and who are making million-profit gains, many times at the expense of the animal owners and their animals.
I have personally spoken with several of the private actors. One explanation one receives is that the care is much more advanced. But the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has been very clear in its studies regarding that. Their researchers say that more advanced care is not sufficient as an explanation for the skyrocketing prices.
It is free pricing. Price transparency is a very important part. One wants to know what a procedure will cost before saying yes or no.
We have free pricing and private actors who should be able to make a profit. But we mean within the Socialdemokraterna that it must be within the limits of reasonableness. This important market must function for those who need it. It does not today, which is worrying.
I want to return to the fact that it has become incredibly expensive with veterinary care in Sweden and that there are large regional differences. As an example, there are figures showing that for a treatment of uterine inflammation in a dog, there can be a difference of up to 54,000 kronor between clinics. In this example, clinics within Greater Stockholm have been compared. It is therefore not a question of different parts of the country. The difference is that one clinic is owned by a venture capital company while the other has a smaller owner.
Dagens Nyheter has reported on cases where it has been cheaper to book a trip to Spain and take the animal there to see a veterinarian than to receive the same treatment at home in Sweden. This applies to people who are resourceful. It is worse for those who do not have the same economic muscles. Sometimes they are even forced to euthanize their animals. It is absolutely appalling.
It is not a right to have animals. But I truly think it is sad that it will soon become a class issue whether one can have a pet in the family or not. I dreamed of having my own horse throughout my entire upbringing. We could not afford that in my family. But I got a cat and then also a rabbit. Today, I believe that many parents of small children hesitate to get pets because they are worried about the prices for veterinary care. It is very sad, because we know what positive impact the animals have on our physical but also mental health.
Therefore, I want to once again, Madam Speaker, return to the subject of the debate and ask the Minister what the government intends to do more concretely regarding pricing and competition so that more Swedes can have a pet in the family.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! In my previous contribution, I mentioned three different measures that can in different ways contribute to addressing the situation and achieving better scrutiny and transparency. The Swedish Competition Authority's mandate is extremely central.
Madam Speaker! I understand what Sofia Skönnbrink is after. She probably wants me to join a Social Democratic proposal – if it is some kind of regulation, price ceiling, or similar that is wanted. I want to be very clear that I do not think we should take on general veterinary care as a state matter. I do not think we should prioritize that part before other welfare expenditures, but this needs to be something that is fundamentally funded by the animal owners themselves. I don't think Sofia Skönnbrink actually wants anything else either, but it is easy to think that when one hears the debate and the rhetoric. This is what I want to be clear about.
That is not to say that we do not see the problems that may exist. If we have deficiencies in competition, they shall be addressed. If it is difficult to have price transparency, we shall try to rectify that through the tools we have to make markets as well-functioning as possible. If we have a shortage of veterinarians, which in itself can drive up the cost of caring for sick animals, we need to ensure that we train more veterinarians. In those situations around the country where availability is too low and where it would be even more expensive to establish a private operation, we have the district veterinarians, whom we finance through the state. In this way, we ensure that one has access to a veterinarian in the whole country, not least for the livestock but also for pets.
This is what I believe is the model moving forward. Even if it might not be as flashy, I believe it is the only reasonable one: keep track of the competition, provide education if necessary, and ensure that we have good accessibility so that we do not make it unnecessarily expensive throughout our elongated country.
Sofia Skönnbrink (S)
Madam Speaker! It is difficult not to fall into a district veterinarian debate, because this is so closely linked. Part of this is that the private actors, in many respects, milk the district veterinarians for staff. They can, for instance, offer better working hours, higher wages, and the opportunity to work with small animals instead of standing out in a cold stable on New Year's Eve, which perhaps not so many would prefer to do. It is a major issue.
The Minister is arguing that the state should not fund veterinary care, which we agree on. We have also never advocated for that. But as said, it is one thing for private companies to make a profit and another thing to charge extortionate prices in order to distribute profits to their owners. I want to be clear about that, Madam Speaker.
Since the Minister is "paving the way" for the Social Democrats' proposals, I want to highlight some of those that we have presented; it has been about a year since we did so. We want to increase price transparency, which the government has moved forward with. We want better opportunities to compare insurance companies. We want to investigate a stop to the profit-seeking that we see occurring within Swedish animal healthcare. We want to examine the possibility of introducing fixed price lists to avoid overpricing – I want to point out that it is about investigating it; we are not saying that it is something we are to have. We want to place more demands on private actors to take responsibility for on-call and standby services, so that there is no flight of staff from the District Veterinarians to private actors. We also want the Competition Authority to be given even more powers, so that they can press down on veterinary prices, among other things by controlling the entire veterinary market and not just individual clinics.
Madam Speaker! I can only hope that the Minister for Rural Affairs and the government will adopt some of these proposals and at least investigate them further to see if we can tackle the skyrocketing price developments in more ways.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! On the website of Konsumenternas försäkringsbyrå, there are tools to facilitate comparisons between the contents of different insurances, for example dog insurances, which I had as an example. The Competition Authority has, as stated, the mandate to look at what information could improve price transparency on the market but which is not generally available at present. Much of what is said, we are therefore working on in one way or another. We see the problem.
It is also important to emphasize something that Sofia Skönnbrink raised in a previous post. The development may not be entirely decisive for all parts of the price increase, but something that can affect the general cost, insurance costs, and so on, is that we now have technical and factual knowledge on how we should care for animals that previously – quite honestly – probably would not have been cared for but instead euthanized.
The technology, the development, and the expertise are moving forward, in the same way as on the human side. It is clear that we as a society see that the costs for care increase as we become more skilled and better. But the difference is that we on the human side take the costs as a collective, while the costs for the animals primarily lie with the animal owner. If I understand correctly, it will be so even in a social democratic Sweden, which perhaps will become a reality at some point in the future.
I have now presented many different parts. In many respects, I believe we are in agreement. But it is important to keep this separate. I do not foresee it becoming a state commitment to cover veterinary costs.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.