Donate Now Truthout Wednesday, 20 November 2013 / TRUTH-OUT.ORG * The Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty Is the Complete Opposite of "Free Trade" The TPP would strip our constitutional rights, while offering no gains for the majority of Americans. * Did the Anti-GMO Movement Really Lose in Washington? A majority of today’s organic and local food activists are no longer just mobilizing to label or ban GMOs. * * Home + News + Opinion + Video + Art o Cartoons o Graphic Journalism o Truthout on Flickr * BuzzFlash + Buzzflash Headlines + Buzzflash Commentary * Speakout * Progressive Picks * * About Us + Submission Guidelines + Contact + Newsletter Sign-Up * Donate _________________________ Go! * Skip to content Greece’s New Americanized Health Care System Friday, 26 October 2012 09:14 By Sam Sacks and Thom Hartmann, The Daily Take | Op-Ed * Tweet * font size decrease font size decrease font size increase font size increase font size * Print * Email Greece Health Care. Dr. Giorgos Vichas, a cardiologist who helped set up an underground network to help Greece's uninsured cancer patients, at the Metropolitan Social Clinic outside Athens, Greece, September 27, 2012. (Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis / The New York Times)Just when the austerity-ravaged people of Greece thought things couldn’t get any worse for them, their universal healthcare system is dismantled and turned into an American-style death system. As the New York Times reports this week, the Greek healthcare system that ensured coverage for all of its citizens before the financial crisis hit has today been completely decimated by Conservative technocrats and austerity-pushers. In the past, Greece provided universal care thanks to employers, individuals, and the government contributing to a fund to administer medical services to the entire population. Even those Greeks who lost their jobs still received health benefits for one year, and after those benefits expired, Greece made sure those individuals still received the healthcare they needed at no cost to them. But then, as we all know, the banksters swept into Greece and swindled the country. And when the global financial markets went bust, Greece was left with a debt crisis and the banksters demanded ALL of their failed investments back. So the banksters decided to suck whatever money they could out of Greece’s social services, in particular, its healthcare system. So in July of 2011, the banksters and technocrats put up their demands. They said they’d give Greece a bailout to ward off complete collapse, but in return they wanted a big chunk of the money that was being used to treat sick Greek citizens. Under pressure from the entire Eurozone, Greece agreed to the deal. And for the first time, unemployed Greeks who had lost their health benefits now had to pay out of their own pocket for any medical care they needed. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because that’s essentially how our healthcare system works today. If you don’t have a job, and you don’t have healthcare, you’re on your own. And while Conservatives here tout our healthcare system as the best in the world – even though every international study disproves this claim – the Greek people are horrified with that they now have to deal with: Americanized healthcare. As Dr. Kostas Syrigos, the head of Greece’s largest oncology department told the Times, “We are moving to the same situation that the United States has been in, where when you lose your job and you are uninsured, you aren’t covered.” Today, that’s the case for roughly half of Greece’s 1.2 million long-term unemployed workers. As reported by the Times, one of those unemployed workers is a woman named Elena who was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, but under the new Greek law could not receive any medical care because her benefits had expired and she had no money. Without treatment, her cancer grew to the size of an orange and broken through her skin leaving a gaping wound. At this point, any sort of medical treatment for Elena was hopeless. She was, essentially, given a death sentence by the banksters. After seeing Elena, Dr. Syrigos told the Times, “Things like that are described in textbooks, but you never see them because until now, anybody who got sick in this country could always get help…In Greece right now, to be unemployed means death.” The same is true in the United States right now where being unemployed and being sick is literally a death sentence in the American healthcare system. As a 2009 study by Harvard University found, 45,000 Americans die every single year because they lack health insurance. The difference between the United States and Greece is we’ve never had a universal healthcare system that covers everyone like Greece has. So when we hear that tens of thousands of Americans die because they don’t have health insurance – plus thousands more who are condemned to death by for-profit health insurance death panels denying treatment – most Americans shrug it off as just the way things work here. And there are those like Mitt Romney who say, “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance…No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for.” Unfortunately, that’s only after your cancer has grown to the size of an orange and ruptured through your skin and you’re already well into your death sentence. That’s the sort of ignorance you’d expect from a Plutocrat who resides in a different United States than the rest of us. That’s why we should all be paying close attention to how the Greek people handle their new Americanized healthcare system, because it will give us a clue as to what we as Americans, living in the wealthiest nation on the planet, should be demanding from our government when it comes to health services. In the face of rising unemployment, lost pensions, and skyrocketing suicide rates, we’ve seen Greek workers pour into the streets demanding an end to austerity. And now, faced with a new healthcare system like ours that doesn’t care for the nation’s most vulnerable, then expect those protests to grow even fiercer. It’s still unclear what the endgame will be for Greece in its fight against Conservative austerity. But they certainly won’t go down without a fight. And it’s time for us in the United States to at least begin our fight for universal healthcare. This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source. [email_this_story_640.gif] Thom Hartmann Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his radio program. He also now has a daily independent television program, The Big Picture, syndicated by FreeSpeech TV, RT TV, and 2oo community TV stations. You can also listen or watch Thom over the Internet. Sam Sacks Sam Sacks is a Progressive Commentator and former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. He is currently the Senior Producer of The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann airing weeknights at 7PM EST on RT and Free Speech TV. _________________________________________________________________ Show Comments Hide Comments View the discussion thread. blog comments powered by Disqus back to top ____________________ Submit tog torss tot tofb Holiday Progressive Picks Angry White Men IFRAME: //www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FTruthout%2F83865976093&width=292&height=258&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&border_color&stream=false&header=false Follow @truthout Latest Stories * Border Patrol International: "The American Homeland Is the Planet" By Todd Miller, TomDispatch | News Analysis * Drones, Tanks, and Grenade Launchers: Coming Soon to a Police Department Near You By John W Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute | Op-Ed * Exclusive: Meet India's Comic Activists Whose Wall Art Is Inspiring Movements — And Changing Policy By Paromita Pain, Occupy.com | Report * Buzzflash Headlines * Average Social Security Check Is $1269, But CEOs With Nest Eggs Worth Tens of Millions Want to Slash the Program - BuzzFlash * Elizabeth Warren Comes Out for Expanding Social Security - The Nation * Where Is the Million Hoodie March for Renisha McBride? - RH Reality Check 2014 Peace Calendar Featured Videos * Hot Money and Cross-Border Finance, the Example of Iceland Hot Money and Cross-Border Finance, the Example of Iceland By Lynn Fries, The Real News Network | Video Interview * Partnering With Polluters? 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