Bloomberg Businessweek: In Putin’s Russia, Universal Health Care Is for All Who Pay
“…Russia [has] slashe[d] health care services to plug budget gaps left by lower oil prices. That has provoked labor unrest by medical workers — some have even staged hunger strikes — and alarm among patients and their families as one government agency said the cuts were responsible for thousands of extra deaths in Russian hospitals last year. … A poll last August by Moscow researcher Levada Center found that just 19 percent of respondents were satisfied with the state medical system…” (Arkhipov/Meyer, 5/13).