The efficiency of fiscal policies towards health services in Turkey

Contemporary states are making every effort to succeed in getting healthy individuals and societies, which is of socially and economically outmost importance. Today health problems in every society show both dramatic increase and diversity thanks to population growth and prosperity levels with accompanying social changes. Costs of healthcare delivery are rising with increasing prosperity. Such factors as industrialization, environmental pollution, urbanization, increase of lifeexpectancy and population growth has brought about a many health problems. As required by understanding of social state, it is the state which is expected to solve these problems. However, costs and expenses paid by the states in solving these problems are increasing day by day. That points to the economic dimension of health problems. In globalized world, providing health service has priority over other services due to its importance for the individual and the society. Therefore, more resources need to be reserved for health services. A careful analysis of developed countries shows us that the portion of healthcare costs in GNP is definitely high in comparison with other countries. Yet, at this point we face problem of indefiniteness and uncertainty of expenses, a basic feature of medical services (work accident, traffic accident, domestic accident, natural disasters, diseases etc.). That is to say, it cannot be foreseen who will need health care and when. That?s why health expenses are unforeseen (Şenatalar, 2003: 25). In Turkey, current projects in frame of the Ministry of Health?s ?Transformation in Health? programme are reflections of efforts to supply increasing demands. Reorganization in health sector and a greater portion of GNP for health services are recent positive developments. The aim of this study is to analyze and interpret fiscal policies towards health services. In this context, expenditure, tax and budget policies towards healthcare service will be examined alongside a comparison with some selected OECD countries. Another point that must be identified about this study is that there have been some difficulties in reaching current, reliable and safe data. Though there is not a grave difficulty in getting data that is used in analysis of expenditure policy in health service, specifically the serious gap in literature about tax and budget policies must be mentioned. Consequently, assessments about the efficiency of health service have been made in scope of expenditure policy.