More than three million Greek citizens are currently uninsured and consequently have no access to public health care system and medical care. According to Dimitris Kontos, the President of Greek National Health Care system (EOPYY), the national health care system currently serves 6,171,000 people with insurance capacity, while the uninsured citizens are 3,068,000 people”.
However, estimations speak of even four million people without insurance as these figure do not include traders who closed their shops, constructor workers who hardly find a daily job and who easily lose their insurance right the moment they stop paying contributions.
Nevertheless, these numbers do not refer to the directly insured but also to their family members.
there are parents who are forced to postpone even simple surgeries for children because they have no access to public health care system and lack the necessary money for the surgery.
Prescription Medicine Scandal
I wonder if Dimitris Kontos spoke also about the increased expenditure for prescription medicine even if the patient is insured. No, drugs prices are not up, self-participation rate of the patient has not increased either.
It’s just that EOPYY has decreased its own participation in the drug price. So while a patient officially has to pay 10% for the medicine – even if it’s generic – he is surprised to have to pay 8-9 euro for a drug of 17 euro total cost. Because the EOPYY covers just 9 euro. and there is of course no medicine in the market at the cost prescripted and predicted by the EOPYY.
Maybe some participant at the event “Healthworld” organized by the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce in Athens can brief us if Kontos addressed also this inhumane problem especially for the chronic-ill low pensioners.
