The inquiry, part of what Sweden's health minister Jakob Forssmed described in a press release as "the biggest reform of dental care in over 20 years", proposed a new cost ceiling for the over 67s, which promises to dramatically reduce their healthcare costs. The proposal will cost the government between 3.4 and 4.5 billion kronor a year should it be enacted.
In a press conference, the chairman of the inquiry, Martin Färnsten said that the dental health of asylum seekers was likely to deteriorate under the system he has proposed to replace the so-called '50 kronor rule'. This rule means that asylum seekers pay a flat rate of just 50 kronor when visiting a dentist for emergency treatment.
"When it comes to the affected individuals, we expect that they are going to consume dental care to a lower degree than today, leading to worse dental health," he said. He also said that the alternative system he had proposed would lead to "higher administrative costs" than the existing system.
Forssmed, however, said that the government intended to push ahead with the proposal to remove this "special rule" for asylum seekers anyway.
"We have a deal in the Tidö Agreement that this type of special rule needs to be taken away. We will prepare the legislation and see in which way we will push this proposal forward," he said.
The Tidö Agreement is the deal the three government parties reached with the far-right Sweden Democrats to win their backing after the 2022 general election.
READ ALSO: Swedish government proposes scrapping free dental care for the young
The inquiry was asked to investigate how the so-called 50-kronor rule could be removed without violating EU regulations on the treatment of asylum seekers.
"The idea behind this assignment was to see whether the system could be changed so that it would be a bit fairer, so that people who actually have the money would also have to pay for their dental care, just like Swedish citizens do," Färnsten told The Local.
But he said that the EU's Receptions Conditions Directive meant that Sweden could not remove the 50-kronor rule without putting in place another system that would ensure that all asylum seekers arriving in the country receive necessary dental treatment, even if they lack sufficient funds.
His solution, he said, had been to put in place a system where asylum seekers send any dental bills they receive to the Swedish Migration Agency, which will then ask them whether they have the means to pay.
"If they haven't got any money, which is surely the case for most of them, then the Swedish Migration Authority will cover the costs," he said. "So this is actually just another way of supporting them because you have to ensure that these people can get urgent dental care."
When it came to the over-67s, Färnsten said that the proposed Tiotandvård system - where patients over the age of 67 only have to pay 10 percent of the reference price for their treatment - would dramatically reduce elderly people's dental costs.
"If you look at the cost for dental care, people who are 67 years old or older today pay about 60 percent of the cost of their dental care, and with our proposal, it will be more like 29 percent, so it will be a huge difference. It will be much cheaper for people who are 67 years old or older."
Reducing the age at which people are eligible for free health care from 23 years old to 20 years old, he said, would not come close to covering the cost of the more generous system for elderly patients, as people in their early 20s in Sweden typically have good dental health meaning little treatment is necessary.
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