"Understand this: there IS NO large scale business in Russia that's independent of the Putin regime"

[SunSeeker]

9. Russia has a sophisticated kleptocracy.

To call Russia's health system a "sophisticated single payer system" is to suggest that it is akin to the single payer systems of France or Denmark. That is simply not the case. Healthcare in Russia is only guaranteed for the oligarchs.

In Putin’s Russia, Universal Health Care Is for All Who Pay
Expectant mothers in Moscow must wait as long as six weeks for ultra-sound scans, up from three days last year. Hospital outpatients pay for blood tests and X-rays that were free 12 months ago. And Marif Alekberov, a 27-year-old fireman with leukemia, is being told to find $23,000 to help fund a bone marrow transplant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-13/in-russia-universal-health-care-is-for-all-who-can-afford-it

Donald Trump, the U.S. president-elect, and right-wing politicians in Europe may be feting Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader. But the grim reality of Russian provincial state health care often has more in common with Third World countries than a supposed resurgent superpower—and that’s where it exists: 17,500 towns and villages across Russia have no medical infrastructure at all.

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/02/dire-russia-health-care-523380.html?amp=1