Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova said Friday that the government plans to increase spending on health care to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, a significant rise compared to recent years.
"This is a serious increase over what we have right now, but those resources will have to be looked for," Golikova said at an annual conference, Interfax reported.
Golikova said "citizens are willing to pay such fees," referring to the increased spending on health care, but added that people "must have absolutely identical guarantees of receiving health care and of its quality."
All Russian constitutions since 1936 list free health care as an inalienable right.
Total government spending on health care was $17 billion in 2010, or 1.15 percent of GDP, and is expected to rise to $45 billion in 2015, Vladimir Zelensky, a department head at the Health and Social Development Ministry, said last year.
