Mr. Johan Hjertqvist has successively been entrepreneur, consultant, deputy mayor of the Swedish city of Tyreso, author and research director on the reform of social services in Sweden. He took part in the creation of a Nordic body to implement modern health care in the Baltic countries. He acts as adviser to the Greater Stockholm Council on the health system and is director of “Health in transition”, a four-year pilot project whose objective is to describe and analyse the operation of a competitive market within the public system. In addition, he is currently writing a book about how the conjunction of new consumer values and scientific progress will change the meaning of health care. In his presentation, he will illustrate the degree to which the introduction of competitive mechanisms makes substantial savings possible and can resolve waiting list problems. Mr. Hjertqvist is on the Frontier Centre’s policy advisory board and writes the Centre’s quarterly newsletter on Swedish healthcare reform.