COVID-19 crisis and fiscal policies to strengthen the healthcare system

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the dimensions of health financing needs arising in Turkey due to the COVID-19 crisis. It was explained what kind of fiscal policy should be implemented to strengthen the health systems with increasing financing needs. The study's main purpose is to investigate how the health system financing in Turkey can benefit from fiscal policies to meet the cost of the COVID-19 crisis on health systems. In this context, in the first part of the study, after a short introduction about the importance of the subject in the second part, the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis and the course of health expenditures were investigated. It has been observed that developing countries lag behind in overcoming the effects of the crisis due to their own structural problems. The crisis has brought up the need to increase the expenditures for health financing worldwide. Turkey has the lowest rate among OECD countries in terms of GDP ratio of health expenditures with 4.4 %. The third part has been researched how the financing of health services in Turkey is provided. The most important sources of financing are taxes, social security premiums, private insurance premiums, and out-of-pocket payments. In the research, it has been observed that this deficit, which the Social Security System has given deficit since the 1990s in Turkey, is covered by the financial transfer from the budget. The share allocated to the Ministry of Health from the central government budget for the last four years is nearly only 5 %. In the fourth chapter, in this case, the designs that governments can make on how to strengthen the health system with taxes, public expenditures, and subsidies using fiscal policy are explained. Examples of fiscal policies for health are taxes on tobacco, tobacco products, and alcohol, subsidies on certain food products, and tax incentives for health care purchases. © 2022 Peter Lang AG. All rights reserved.