THE IMPACT OF HEALTH EXPENDITURES ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN TURKEY

Abstract

Living in a healthy way is the most basic right of all people. The absence of a disease does not mean that the person is healthy, the person must feel good socially, spiritually and physically as a whole. All services provided by health professionals and auxiliary personnel to meet the health care demand of individuals are health services. Expenditures made to meet the demand for health services can be defined as health expenditures. With the increase in the population of the country, the demand for health services is increasing day by day. The increase in the demand for health services is directly related to the structure of the population. If the structure of the population changes and the proportion of the elderly population increases, there will be a serious increase in the demand for health services because elderly people will experience more health problems. With the increase in demand for health services, the share of health expenditures in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is also increasing. Health expenditures are also an important indicator of a country's level of development. The high share of health expenditures in gross domestic product in developed countries is a result of the importance given to health expenditures by developed countries. Because health expenditures are an important item for the productivity of human capital. The role of human capital in economic growth is quite large. Health is an important part of human capital. The fact that the human resources required for production are healthy will cause an increase in the amount of production. Namely: If individuals with health problems cannot work, there will be a loss of labor; After these individuals return to work, there will be losses in their performance. For this reason, the amount of production will be adversely affected. For this reason, healthy individuals are needed to eliminate the negativities to be experienced in economic growth. In this context, the study examines why health expenditures are important for economic growth and social welfare. In the study, qualitative and quantitative research methods were evaluated by using health expenditure figures in Turkey.