Etudes par pays volume 2, PDF, 346 p., 1,4 Mo - Femise

11873_2002 Study D2: Poverty, Informal Sector, Health and Labour
In 2000, total public and private health care expenditure in Greece
represented 9.1 per cent of GDP, up from 4.2 per cent in 1990. This figure is
considered by researchers as an underestimate of the actual expenses by 1-
1.5 per cent of GDP, due to the inaccurate calculation of the private
expenditure – missing the underground economy in health care in the form
of expenses not included in GDP or tax evasion. These expenses are under
the table payments for quicker access to NHS or extra charges by the
physicians in public hospitals, e.g. for an operation or tips to nurses. For
instance, by mid-1990s, the ‘’unregistered’’ expenditure on health was
estimated to represent 1.1 per cent of GDP (table 6).
2.2. Policy and Legislation
The NHS was established in 1983 (L. 1397/1983) after the socialist
government took office, setting as a basic principle that health care is a
social good not subjected to the laws of profit and is offered free of charge
equally to each and every citizen independently of his or her socioeconomic
position. The protection of the citizens’ health is the exclusive responsibility
of the state. The law sets in motion a process of decentralization of health
services; their integrated planning; the development of primary health care
at the Health Centers; and the institution of the hospital physician with ‘full
and exclusive’ employment. Private hospitals that until then were subsidized
by the government were turned into state hospitals.
Over time, it was realized that the NHS was not functioning in the way
expected and the provisions of the law were, for a number of reasons, not
properly implemented. Thus, in 1992, a new law (L. 2071/1992) was passed
by the conservative government that came to power, for the ‘modernization’
and organization of the NHS. Changing partly the philosophy of the
previous system, the new legislation moved towards a more ‘neoliberal’
approach. They tried, in effect, to fix some of the weaknesses and flaws of
the NHS after ten years’ experience with it.
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