Greece’s healthcare system and the crisis: a case study in the struggle for a capable welfare state

• Autor(a) principal: Economou, Charalampos
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25761/anaisihmt.246

The present paper discusses the impact of restrictive policies dictated by Troika on Greece’s health care system. The majority of the measures introduced during the first wave of reforms (2010-2014), were fiscal consolidation measures resulting in increasing barriers to access to health services and a deterioration of the health of the population. Policies likely to promote health care system goals such as universal coverage, strategic purchasing, Health Technology Assessment, public health measures, shifting from inpatient to ambulatory care, and integration and coordination of primary and secondary care, were neglected, while some other, e.g. the National Organization for the Provision of Health Services, the National Primary Health Care Network and Diagnosis Related Group-Greek Version, were not well planned and implemented, due to extremely strict reform targets and schedules imposed by the Memoranda. Although after 2015 these neglected issues came to the forefront of the health policy agenda, issues for further consideration remain in relation to the scope and depth of social health insurance, the adequacy of public health funding, the development of a resource allocation mechanism, the reorganization of the hospital sector, the development of physical rehabilitation, long-term and palliative care and the strengthening of public health services. Using the health system as a case study, we argue that “hard” Europeanization mechanisms characterized by fiscal austerity and internal devaluation resulted to the retrenchment of the Greek welfare state.