The platform for priority-setting contains key ideas about the mission, goals and values of health care in Sweden. The basic idea is that health care resources should be distributed primarily according to need and effect, and secondarily according to cost-effectiveness. Nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of their gender, age, religion, ethnic origin or political views. We also need to distinguish between the health-related needs that we, as a society, have agreed should be met by publicly funded health care and needs for which there is no such agreement. The mission of health care can, and ought to, remain unchanged, even if, or as, this classification changes. The platform should not be abandoned, since it helps to maintain trust in our publicly financed health care system.