Health Care Reform and Household Welfare: Health Transformation Programme in Turkey

Abstract

We assessed the health care reform and its effects on household’s welfare such as access to health care and household economic burden. We used descriptive analysis on 2002-2011 Ministry of Health and OECD Health Statistics. The main result is about using health care. Access to health care increased after health care reform in Turkey. Number of applications to health care service server and its units rose. On the other hand, financial burden of health care on household’s budget decreased number of applications. The main result percentage of not consulting a specialist even needed to consult a specialist but did not during the past 12 months is %4.9 in 2003 and %19.9 in 2010. To improve health care access, policy makers should improve public sector provision of health care, increase social security benefit packages and protect poor and vulnerable.