An examination on the increase in public health spendings in neoliberal transformation process in Turkey: Is it the remains of welfare state or an unusual practice of neoliberalism?

As is the case throughout the world, having started to become dominant in the 1980s in Turkey, neo-liberal economic policies have led to the transformation process in almost every area of social order. What has happened in the transformation process seems to contradict neoliberal policy objectives. Despite the pressures to reduce public expenditures, public health expenditures have tended to increase during the neoliberal transformation period. Practices in political economy have requested a proper answer to the question "Is the increase in the health expenditures a superficial contradiction to neoliberal policies or the reflections of welfare state?" In this study, the main postulated of the neoliberal transformation are examined first in general and then specifically its implementation in Turkey. In this framework, the literature on neoliberal transformation and its reflections on social policies in general and specifically on social security and health system has been reviewed . Data on health expenditures were collected, the possible causes of the increase in public health expenditures were investigated in the neoliberal transformation process, and the findings were used to answer the question. In this context, according to the results of this study, it is argued that the increase in public health expenditures results from a specific neoliberal policy order in which public resources are transferred to private sector through public health expenditures. Purchasing health service especially medical examination and treatment from private sector by withdrawing from health service production and presentation, creating of artificial demand with performance pressure, leaving the hospital management to the others than health workers and hiring from those who invest in health sector by paying higher price than it should be instead of making investment are the main reasons why public health expenditure have tended to increase, these also are the ways to transfer public resources to the private sector.