Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pushing out a nationwide system of personal healthcare that may win him more votes in next year’s election than all his rows with Turkey’s secular-minded generals.
Next month Erdogan’s government says it will complete a network of family doctors — one for every 3,500 Turks. That’s a first for the European Union membership candidate where infant mortality is 17 in a thousand, the highest in the 33-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The overhaul is the latest step in a drive toward universal healthcare that has won record approval ratings. It’s key to Erdogan’s bid to win a third term, explaining his willingness to stretch the budget as medical spending is set to rise five times faster than overall costs next year. The World Bank says outlays are manageable, and pollsters say the benefits they buy matter more to most Turks than Erdogan’s bid to rein in the military and ease curbs on religious symbols such as the headscarf.
via Erdogan Seeks Re-Election as Turkish Health-Care Plan Trumps Headscarves – Bloomberg.