Response to interpellation 2025/26:197 on the state's responsibility for primary care

Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)

Madam Speaker! Sanna Backeskog has asked me whether I consider it compatible with the national goals of an equal and cohesive healthcare system that regions – such as Gävleborg – corporatize and in practice begin privatization of primary care, despite the risk of increased administrative costs, the risk of impaired competence supply, and the risk of fragmentation of the healthcare system, and what measures I intend to take to counteract this development.

Initially, I would like to emphasize that it is the regions that, according to the Health and Medical Services Act (2017:30), are responsible for planning health and medical care based on the need for care among those covered by the region's responsibility. Furthermore, it applies to all publicly funded health and medical services that they shall be organized in a way that promotes cost-effectiveness. Regions and municipalities may, with maintained ownership, enter into agreements with any other party to perform the tasks that the region or municipality is responsible for according to the Health and Medical Services Act. The agreements shall state the specific conditions that apply to the handover. It should, however, be emphasized that the regions' ownership responsibility for health and medical services always remains. It cannot be transferred to private actors.

According to the Local Government Act (2017:725), the municipal council in municipalities or regions may, unless it is specified in law or other regulation that the matter shall be managed by a municipal committee, decide to transfer the management of a municipal matter to a legal entity or an individual. If a region transfers the management of a municipal matter to a wholly owned municipal company, the municipal council shall, among other things, establish the municipal purpose of the activity, ensure that the established municipal purpose and the municipal powers that form the framework for the activity are specified in the articles of association, and ensure that it is specified in the articles of association that the municipal council may take a position on such decisions in the activity that are of a principled nature or otherwise of greater importance before they are made.

Care providers in both the public and private sectors are responsible for ensuring that the requirements for good care are met. It appears from the Health and Medical Services Act that where health and medical care is provided, there shall be the personnel, the premises, the medical products, and the equipment needed for good care to be able to be provided. The Health and Medical Services Act also sets requirements that the quality of the operations shall be systematically and continuously developed and secured. These provisions apply to all care providers, regardless of whether the operation is public or private.

The staff is the healthcare system's most important resource, and strengthening the healthcare system's competence supply is an important part of the government's work to increase accessibility and strengthen care capacity. The government is therefore implementing several initiatives in the area. For example, during 2025, just under 5.9 billion kronor are allocated to be distributed under the ordinance (2024:1252) on state grants to regions for strengthened accessibility and increased care capacity within specialized healthcare, and just under 3.7 billion kronor to be distributed under the ordinance (2024:1253) on state grants to municipalities and regions for the development of good and close care. In order to receive these funds, the primary providers must implement measures concerning competence supply and the work environment.

The Government currently has no intention of taking any general initiatives regarding the corporatization of primary care and wishes to emphasize the regions' responsibility, as the principals for health and medical care, to ensure that residents can be offered good and safe care, in accordance with the applicable regulatory framework.

With that, I would like to thank Sanna Backeskog for the question and I look forward to the debate.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Sanna Backeskog (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for Health and Care for a detailed answer, and thank you for being here and debating with us today.

I want to begin with a few words about why I am concerned about what is happening with Gävleborg and about our Social Democratic view on our Swedish welfare. The strength of the welfare that we Social Democrats from Gävleborg defend is that it is fair because everyone receives a share of it as a right, and it is there when we need it most.

Our welfare increases people's freedom because it does not lock anyone into dependency on someone else. According to the social democrat, welfare should be democratically governed and constructed, which actually means that citizens have the opportunity for influence, transparency, and participation. There is a strength in this. The public interest must therefore take precedence over the profit interest.

The Moderates and the Sweden Democrats talk about welfare services – services! By that, they mean that welfare and healthcare are like any other commodity, to be bought and sold on market terms. It is enough to look at the situation in Gävleborg. In region Gävleborg, the Moderates and the Sweden Democrats, with the support of the Christian Democrats and the Sjukvårdspartiet, have decided to corporatize the entire primary care. All our publicly run health centers will now become a limited company.

This is a gigantic systemic shift in Swedish healthcare that is taking shape regionally, but it has an impact on all regions in the country. Therefore, I believe that the issue must be raised here in the chamber of the Riksdag.

Not only that; the decision was made after a consultancy report, ordered by one of the majority, proposed a corporatization in step one and a sell-off to private actors in step two. The consequences are obvious. We know what marketization of healthcare means, that is to say increased centralization, increased costs, increased inequality, reduced transparency and reduced democratic control.

I am grateful for the detailed answer, but I am also somewhat surprised that the Minister for Health and Social Affairs does not intend to take any initiatives in this matter. I actually do not understand that. I also cannot reconcile it with the Christian Democrats' policy. The Christian Democrats are the party that wants to nationalize the entire healthcare system. But do we not see a problem with an entire care chain being run as a limited company? I would very much like to discuss the issue further and see if we can reach common solutions or common positions. The issue needs to be raised at a national level in the chamber of the Riksdag.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Kristoffer Lindberg (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank Sanna Backeskog for an important interpellation.

The Sweden Democrats, the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Healthcare Party Gävleborg have decided that all of the region's health centers shall be corporatized. Without either a consequence analysis or any economic basis, they have rushed forward to manage this as quickly as possible before the election loss next year.

A few weeks ago, the regional council in Gävleborg convened. During that meeting, the opposition raised concerns regarding primary care, including that the new primary care company is planning for a deficit of 176 million next year. The concern from the opposition is that this risks leading to staff layoffs and, in the long run, to the decommissioning of smaller health centers in the countryside. This is something that should require great transparency and an open democratic debate.

Why do I tell this here in the chamber of the Riksdag? Well, because the answer from the Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna and their supporting parties was that in a corporate board one works for the company's best interests. Not for the citizens' best interests, then?

The right-wing parties also responded that the opposition's members in the primary care company should not at all speak about the company's finances and internal work to the public because, according to the articles of association and the ownership directives, it is the CEO or the chairman of the board who shall be responsible for information from the company. The right-wing parties claim that the company's budget is still a trade secret and an internal matter of the board.

Everyone listening to this debate – let this sink in! It is, therefore, about practically the entire primary care in one of our Swedish regions, where the opposition is not to be able to conduct a public conversation and question the majority's decisions and what effects they have for the citizens.

It is here that it becomes a highly relevant issue for the whole country, because here the right-wing parties, in their eagerness to silence the opposition, hit the nail on the head regarding perhaps the biggest problem with politicians who play at business and sell out welfare or transfer the citizens' common welfare to limited companies, namely the citizens' insight and influence.

We see it as a duty for politicians to be able to engage in a dialogue with citizens regarding the development of healthcare or any other political issues whatsoever.

I shall quote what the liberal editorialist Tobias Svensson wrote in the newspaper Ljusnan: ”The citizens' democratic oversight into how the health centers are managed and what changes are underway will be worsened if the opposition's board members are gagged and only allowed to inform in retrospect about decisions that have already been taken.”

Healthcare is the voters' most important issue. Does the Minister and the Government think that fragmenting healthcare and moving the decisions regarding the healthcare that the most people come into contact with, namely primary care, to the boardrooms of private limited companies – hidden from open democratic debate – is the right way to go for Swedish healthcare?

(THIRD DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am reading here to see that we are not in any regional council, for it is not there the debate is being held right now.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Linnéa Wickman (S)

Madam Speaker! I would like to thank my colleague Sanna Backeskog, who has taken the initiative for this important debate. It is important for the residents of Gävleborg, but it is also of national interest. It concerns a fundamentally decisive issue: which direction we want Swedish healthcare to take.

I also thank the Minister for the opening answer.

The ideological experiment with the county's publicly run health centers that the political leadership in Region Gävleborg, with the Moderaterna and Sverigedemokraterna at the forefront, is now carrying out through corporatization may sound like an undramatic administrative change, but it is a systemic shift. It paves the way to be able to privatize and sell off health centers in the next step.

Another possible consequence is that the smaller health centers, located in rural areas where it can be more difficult to recruit staff and where many patients have greater healthcare needs due to age, illness, and poor health, are forced to close.

That corporatization makes it easier to sell off or close down health centers is clearly evident in the consultancy report that has been mentioned here in the debate. At a cost of approximately 50,000 kronor per page, or a total of 1.2 million kronor, they have even listed possible speculators to sell to.

Madam Speaker! When the publicly run health centers are to be managed through a limited company, access to care will not only be regulated by the healthcare's portal paragraph stating that care shall be provided based on need, but also by the Companies Act, where profit is paramount. These are goals that are not obviously compatible.

In step with the way market conditions have entered public activities, the character of the welfare state has already been affected. There, the traditional principle that resources should be distributed according to need exists. This has been partially replaced by economic assessments where the future of activities is determined by profitability and where the public sector is forced to apply management models derived from the private business sector.

There is also no lack of experience in Sweden or in Gävleborg of how marketization has already affected welfare. I would like to give an example.

In Ljusne in Söderhamn Municipality, the health center was closed immediately after the last election of the private operator that then ran it. The parties that now govern Region Gävleborg and who before the election promised that they would open a region-run health center if the private one was closed have betrayed that promise.

When the health center was closed, the neighborhood's only pharmacy was also closed. It also affected the conditions for the local nursing home, whose places have now been cancelled by the municipality. What remains is an elderly population that now finds it more difficult to collect their medicine, and it is not solely because the government and Sverigedemokraterna have made it more expensive. It also becomes more difficult for the population to access the care they have a right to.

A nurse at the nursing and care home described the closures in Radio Gävleborg as follows: It is very heavy. Our users and patients receive worse care.

All over our country, there are places that have felt how the common good withdraws from its social mission when privatizations and market thinking have managed to find their way into the welfare system.

Therefore, I ask: Does the Minister for Health and Social Affairs really not feel any concern, and does she not intend to do anything when we see how, in Region Gävleborg, they are going further than ever in Sweden when it comes to the marketization of primary care? Does it not also hinder the development of good and close care? We want primary care to be the hub of Swedish health and medical care.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mattias Eriksson Falk (SD)

Madam Speaker! Minister for Health and Social Affairs! I have taken note of the interpellation that the Social Democrats, through Member of Parliament Sanna Backeskog, have submitted to the Minister for Health and Social Affairs. The interpellation contains a number of inaccuracies that need to be addressed, not least for the sake of the Minister for Health and Social Affairs and the transparency of the debate.

Firstly, there is no privatization planned at all of any health centers that are currently owned by Region Gävleborg. This is also not something that the Sweden Democrats would back or agree to do.

Secondly, it is stated in the interpellation that there are no longer any permanent doctors at the mentioned health centers in Sandviken. I want to say that six of the eight of these doctors have now moved over and that one of the doctors has chosen to take another position within Region Gävleborg. It is natural, as staff move around within different region-run operations.

Thirdly, we have the economic report that the interpellator referred to in writing and which she also used in her rhetoric when she spoke about costs. Then we must remember that the report being referred to is something that one has cobbled together oneself. It is a concoction from three opposition parties in Gävleborg that one has then chosen to put Region Gävleborg's logo on and present to, among other things, the media as if it were produced by the region's officials or some other serious actor. That is not the case, but it is primarily a concoction from the Socialdemokraterna.

The reason we have this interpellation debate here in the Swedish Riksdag today is that it is part of a tactic where the Socialdemokraterna are trying to scare the citizens in Region Gävleborg and Gävleborg County in an attempt to win the election. Pure lies are being put forward about there being a privatization underway of region-run health centers. So that is not the case.

I also believe that it is a way for the Social Democrats to shift the focus from their own policy of forced mixing, which they intend to implement and which will also affect the people of Gävleborg. Region Gävleborg has previously – until the last election – always had Social Democratic rule, and now they want to exert influence with their forced mixing policy.

When we talk about specifically region-run health centers versus private operations, we are not talking about privatization, but we are talking about purely private health centers. We can take an example from Gävleborg under the Social Democrats' rule. Then the region withdrew completely from one municipality, Nordanstigs municipality. They closed the region-run health center. The region simply withdrew under the Social Democrats' watch, and there private operations have now taken over. Now there are actually two health centers, but that is thanks to private healthcare providers having chosen to open them.

One of my fears is that the Social Democrats, if they regain power in Gävleborg, will push forward very hard and simply not create the conditions for private operations to exist at all. In that case, many municipalities will be left completely without health centers in the future.

Furthermore, I should add that it was actually the case that Folktandvården was corporatized during the Socialdemokraternas earlier time in power. That can also be worth including in the debate.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

TREDJE VICE TALMANNEN

I really want to point out that this is not a municipal council debate in Region Gävleborg, nor is it a debate in any other region or municipality. This is a debate in Sweden's Riksdag. An interpellation shall concern issues for which the minister is responsible. I appeal to the members to focus on what the minister has the possibility to answer.

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Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)

Madam Speaker! I thank you for the point. It becomes a bit difficult to participate in a debate that concerns regional politics.

I want to make a clarification. In the debate, there has been talk about profit interest, limited companies, and so on. The listener might get the impression that it is about a region selling out its operations to other actors, but that is not what is at issue here. Any profits go back into the operation. It is the region residents' company. The corporate form is, in this case, a form of operation for an activity. The purpose is, if I have understood correctly, to create a more efficient operation after it has run at a deficit for a long time.

One can also get the impression that the concerns regarding continuity and doctors are new. However, a fairly quick Google search on how the situation has looked in primary care reveals that in 2016, there was a patient who had met 21 doctors over two years. It was not a particularly good situation given the continuity of doctors. Initiatives have also been taken by previous governments to depart from the national guidelines of having a specialist in general medicine at every health center and settle for there being a doctor at every health center. This is also not something to be preferred in a good and accessible primary care.

It is important that we have clear guidelines for what primary care should offer. We are not quite there in the country. Swedish primary care has certain concerns. It is under-dimensioned and cannot manage to meet the needs that exist. This does not apply exclusively to Gävleborg, but these are problems in many places, especially in rural areas.

The Government is making major investments to strengthen primary care. Annual investments of 3 billion have been distributed through SKR previously. Now, a larger sum is being distributed through Socialstyrelsen, with increased support to the regions. Special rural area investments of 300 million kronor are being made to secure the presence of primary care and facilitate the transition to good and close care. The Government will continue to support both the transition to good and close care and the supply of competence.

But with the order we have – and which I also perceive that the party the interpellator represents wants – it is the regions that are responsible for the care. The legislation gives the regions the possibility to let other actors run the operations. It can, as in this case, be a regional company owned by the region's residents, but it can also be private companies. The region can, however, never abdicate the responsibility to provide care to its residents, regardless of whether one chooses to conduct the care in another form of operation. The Health and Medical Services Act applies, regardless of which form of operation one chooses for its activities.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Sanna Backeskog (S)

Madam Speaker! I do not think that what is happening in Gävleborg can be regarded merely as a regional detail. When one allows a private consultant's sales plan to be laid as the foundation for such a large systemic shift in primary care, I believe it affects national healthcare policy. I believe the government has a responsibility to ensure that the radically ideologically made decisions do not become a market-experimental shop window for the rest of the country.

I would also like to take the opportunity to emphasize that I am the first to agree that primary care needs a boost, both in Gävleborg and in the rest of the country. But large changes that are made must be for the better. They need to be developed in cooperation with primary care staff and in harmony with the people's needs and the solid experiences of patient associations, medical associations, and trade unions. It would be more tasteful if one listened to them instead of hiring a private consultant from Stockholm who proposes the sell-off of the entire care chain. We want to emphasize that it is a whole care chain we are talking about. It is a matter of the entire primary care.

I mean that the actions of the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates go against both the Riksdag's and the government's intentions for good and close care. I am very worried, Madam Speaker, and I mean that I have reason for my worry. Linnéa Wickman, in her contribution, took up the consequences for the residents of Ljusne of the market having been allowed to rule instead of the needs. We cannot have an arrangement where care is centralized to where it is profitable. That Ljusne has neither a health center nor a pharmacy is unreasonable.

Another aspect of good and close care is that a coherent care chain is needed where the patients are at the center. This requires good cooperation between hospital clinics, primary care, and the municipalities' home care. In the case of Gävleborg, the municipalities experience that these decisions have been made without sufficient cooperation and over their heads.

We have also been able to read in the local media that the upcoming limited company clearly marks primary care's positioning against the healthcare clinics, against school health care, and against the municipal home healthcare. But patients already today experience to an all too great extent that they fall between the chairs between different healthcare entities and that no one takes overall responsibility for their care. Then we cannot continue to position ourselves in this way. Then we must join forces with the municipalities, which also have an important responsibility.

We need to go in a completely different direction, which involves increased cooperation. The patients' needs must be at the center. All actors around the patients must cooperate for their best interests, and employees and managers must have the very best conditions to do just that. I do not believe that a limited company, which nevertheless falls under the Companies Act, has the prerequisites to fulfill those goals. I have seen the Minister for Health and Social Affairs' and the government's bill on good and close care. I do not see how that aligns with the Companies Act.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Kristoffer Lindberg (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the opportunity to raise this fundamental question regarding Swedish primary care. Corporatization means that large parts of the care are moved away from direct political governance, away from the citizens' elected representatives, to a corporate board that makes decisions based on the company's best interests. It means a fragmented care chain. People's influence over the care decreases, which erodes democratic control.

When healthcare is conducted in a public administration, citizens can, through their elected representatives, directly influence which priorities are made, hold their elected officials accountable, and demand responsibility from them in general elections. All of this becomes more difficult when primary care is conducted in corporate form and the elected officials are not allowed to openly debate, for example, the healthcare budget before decisions are made, as I took up in my previous speech.

It is the core of the democratic problem that arises with limited companies in the citizens' common welfare. Furthermore, a limited company's profit requirement risks leading to short-term economic goals. Business-related economic considerations are allowed to take precedence over people's actual needs for care.

Won't it then become more difficult to fully implement what the Riksdag has decided, that care shall be provided based on need, with these business-like and short-term economic goals? I mean that it is important to alert the Riksdag and the government to that development in the country.

I would very much like the Minister to say something about how the government views the development and what is intended to be done to ensure that care is provided based on need.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Linnéa Wickman (S)

Madam Speaker! When the future of primary care in one of the counties in our country is shaped by a consultancy report and decisions in a limited company, which nevertheless has the overriding goal of generating economic profit, I think in any case that we have reached a limit. We as elected representatives should be able to say: Enough is enough with market experiments in healthcare.

What the debate is about is that the way forward to solve primary care's challenges is not more market experiments. It does not strengthen accessibility. It does not strengthen continuity. It does not strengthen equality. On the contrary, I want to argue that it threatens the development of good and close care. The important primary care reform that is to be implemented in our country has stalled to a very great extent.

We Social Democrats want to abolish mandatory LOV within primary care. The regions should be able to ensure that health centers are located where the needs are greatest and not just where it is most profitable to make a profit.

We want to inflation-proof the state grants to municipalities and regions so that resources are not eroded from year to year. We also consistently prioritize more resources for healthcare than the government does. We want to make targeted investments to strengthen good and close care so that the staff can receive reasonable conditions.

All of this would have made a concrete difference for the residents of Gävleborg and for our country. But the residents of Gävleborg also deserve an answer. What is happening now in Gävleborg is a shop window. Is this a model that the Sverigedemokraterna and the government want to build the future of healthcare on? It actually implies a system shift in the entire country.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mattias Eriksson Falk (SD)

Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Health and Social Affairs!

It is somehow quite stomach-turning that members from the Social Democrats stand here in the Swedish Riksdag and claim that a region would, more or less deliberately, not follow the legislation that we have in Sweden. It is a bit strange to come out with that claim.

There are many examples all over Sweden of region-owned activities that exist in regional companies and are operated as such. It is not only in Gävleborg. One can look at many counties all over Sweden. It is in the same way as much municipal activity is conducted in municipal companies, and not least in my home municipality Gävle.

It points much towards a flexibility for municipalities and regions to be able to have a model where one utilizes the possibilities of the Local Government Act to establish municipal and regional companies to conduct certain activities and thus create conditions for it to function better.

As I mentioned, the public dental care in my home country has for a long time been operated in corporate form. It turned from a poor financial result to the company now being stable. It shows that the flexibility that exists in the legislation to be able to test new ways also yields results.

Municipally or regionally owned companies can be one of the most important things to provide opportunities for operations to function and for staff to feel more secure and see that they can test new ways to get something in order.

The economy may have been poor for a long time, and there are other examples. I strongly oppose the picture being presented here in the speaker's chair that some kind of privatization is underway in Gävleborg, for that is not the case.

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Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)

Madam Speaker! I would like to comment on some of what has been said here, even though it is quite a lot.

There has been talk about care based on need. It is established and applies. No region can ever abdicate from it or ignore it, regardless of what form of operation is chosen for the activity. Care based on need is the foundation for Swedish health and medical care. We will not move away from that.

Furthermore, the Health and Medical Services Act stipulates in Chapter 4, Section 1 that publicly funded health and medical services shall be organized in such a way that they promote cost-effectiveness. That is also the case.

Madam Speaker! I am not quite clear on the concern here. On one hand, it is stated in the interpellation that it is expensive, that there is no staff, and that it will be bad for the patients. On the other hand, there is concern that it will serve as a shop window and that the rest of Sweden will follow suit.

Madam Speaker! I wonder how the members view the country's regional politicians if one fears that all regional politicians will follow a truly bad example that is expensive, lacks staff, and does not provide care to the patients. It reflects alarmingly low expectations of our regional politicians. If this does not turn out well, I find it difficult to see that it is an example that would be taken further.

When it comes to democratic oversight, it is the municipal council that appoints board members in regional companies. It is the municipal council that determines the purpose of the operations and which shall take a position on decisions in the operations that are of a principled nature or of other greater importance before they are made. There is a democratic oversight in a municipal or regional company.

When it comes to what the government is doing, I can repeat that we are allocating several billion and have done so every year to strengthen primary care and the transition to good and close care. We are also accelerating the transition through new legislation and taking the next step for good and close care where it becomes even clearer that regions and municipalities shall cooperate to secure good and close care.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Sanna Backeskog (S)

Madam Speaker! As a point of clarification, if anyone is watching this debate, I want to emphasize that the Social Democrats were against the corporatization of the public dental care in Gävleborg. It also led to closures of private clinics throughout the county, which we were not for.

It is the council that appoints members. But they are also burdened with a gag order that one does not have as an ordinary council member. If you enter a company, it is trade secrets. You can be threatened with disciplinary measures if you tell the voters about, for example, the financial management in the company. In other words, democratic oversight is radically reduced.

Regarding the cost-effectiveness, which the Minister for Health and Social Affairs raised, we have calculated that it will be at least 100 million more expensive per year with the company. It is increased administrative costs with a new management and a new board, but above all, it is VAT costs. I do not see how that can be compatible with cost-effectiveness. It simply does not add up.

A corporatization and even more a privatization will lead to primary care becoming unequal with over-establishment in economically attractive areas and a shortage in the parts where the needs are greatest. We can see this with the public dental care as an example.

It becomes city against country, the well-off against the poor, and the healthy against those with heavy healthcare needs. Transparency is weakened and costs increase.

If anyone thinks that it would be some kind of election tactic to be extremely concerned that our primary care is to be run by a limited company, I want to emphasize this: As one knows oneself, so one knows others.

This concern is fully justified. Whose interests is this company to represent? Where will our health centers be located? How can good and local care be organized?

I wish the Minister for Health Care a Merry Christmas.

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TREDJE VICE TALMANNEN

We are obviously in a plenary debate during the interpellation debate, and that is not how the interpellation debates are intended to be used.

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Sjukvårdsministern Elisabet Lann (KD)

Madam Speaker! I agree; it will be a somewhat odd situation to debate healthcare in a specific region.

I ask myself: Which other decisions made by regional politicians should we override? There are examples of Social Democratic regional politicians who, based on consultancy reports, decide to phase out emergency departments, for example. Should the government also override that type of decision?

We have legislation that regulates the regions' responsibilities. They cannot escape this responsibility by changing the operating model for their activities, as the ownership remains with the region. The voters have the opportunity to demand accountability when there is an election. There is nothing that a corporate form changes when it comes to primary care in Gävleborg or anywhere else.

It is the regional politicians who, according to law, have the opportunity to tax the population and ensure that the residents receive the primary care they are entitled to and that they need. This remains fixed regardless of how one chooses to organize their primary care. I hope that this is clear and distinct for everyone. If it does not turn out well, the voters, thank goodness, have to demand accountability when it is time for elections.

I also want to take this opportunity to wish the members and the interpellor a Merry Christmas.

The interpellation debate was hereby concluded.

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