Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2006 (2006), Article ID 91818, 11 pages
doi:10.1155/DDNS/2006/91818

Moving equilibria in the public health care sector: A low-quality trap and a resolution

Ahmet Kara

Department of Economics, Fatih University, Hadımköy, Büyükçekmece 34500, Istanbul, Turkey

Received 22 March 2006; Accepted 16 May 2006

Copyright © 2006 Ahmet Kara. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the existence, in a particular subset of the Turkish public health care sector, of equilibria moving towards a low-quality trap over time. The dynamics of the movement in question hinges, in part, on the socially necessary but demographically asymmetric burden, on some public health care institutions, of providing affordable health care to certain sections of the population. The paper formulates a policy option that could help the sector to escape the trap, moving the sector towards high quality-high welfare equilibria.