Türkiye
AKP submits a bill to parliament that would write off health insurance premium debts from before 2017
- What happened
- The ruling AKP has submitted a 15-article omnibus bill to parliament that would cancel unpaid general health insurance premiums from before 1 January 2017.
- Why it matters
- The party says between 2.2 and 2.8 million people would be freed of the debt; the same bill narrows a corporate tax break.
- What’s next
- The bill now goes through parliament; the tax change is planned to apply from 1 January 2027.
How this story developed
- 15:31First report
- 15:342nd source
- 15:34Confirmed
- 16:193rd source
- 17:46+2 outlets in 29 min
- 15:31First reportDiken
- 15:342nd sourceCumhuriyet
- 15:34ConfirmedWas: Single source
- 16:193rd sourceHabertürk
- 17:46Latest+2 outlets in 29 minEuronews Türkçe and NTV
Full story
What the bill does
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted an omnibus bill of 15 articles to the Speaker’s office of the Turkish parliament on Thursday. Its most widely felt measure concerns general health insurance, known in Türkiye as GSS, the scheme through which people who are not covered through a job pay premiums for public healthcare.
The bill adds temporary provisions to the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law. Under them, the state would give up collecting all unpaid GSS premiums for the period before 1 January 2017, together with the late-payment penalties and interest attached to them, Diken and Habertürk reported. Premiums that have already been paid for those years would not be refunded or offset.
How many people
The outlets carried two different figures, both attributed to the AKP’s parliamentary group chair, Abdullah Güler. Cumhuriyet and NTV reported that 2,199,860 people would benefit. Habertürk quoted Güler as saying that the premium debt of 2.8 million citizens would be written off.
Güler presented the measure as a way of restoring people’s access to health services by lifting the burden of old debt from them, according to Habertürk.
What else is in it
The bill also narrows the reduced corporate tax rate of 12.5%. According to Cumhuriyet, precious metal businesses engaged in production, oil refineries and producers of tobacco and alcoholic drinks would no longer be able to use it. That change is planned to apply from 1 January 2027.
Public university hospitals that work with the Social Security Institution (SGK) on a fixed budget would not have to repay the difference if they deliver less care than budgeted until the end of 2026, Diken reported; that debt would be cancelled and covered from the ministry budget.
Habertürk listed further measures: bank staff carrying out a liquidation of funds under a legal mandate would be shielded from financial and administrative liability, an employment incentive for women, young people and holders of vocational certificates would run until the end of 2028, and rules for recruiting gendarmerie and coast guard officers would be rewritten in line with a Constitutional Court ruling.