Posted on 05/29/2012 10:19:11 AM PDT by tcrlaf
Pharmacies in Greece were on strike earlier this week in protest at the government not paying them for medicines that should be free to customers.
Many pharmacies now have huge debts to pharmaceutical companies for drugs they have handed out free of charge.
Sky News spoke to one pharmacist who has not been paid by the state for over a year. Evaggelina Rousi, who runs a chemist in Athens, said: "The government owes us 30,000 euros but we have not been paid by them for a year and a half.
Many people who rely on regular medication are at risk. "How can we survive like this? We can't take it anymore." The shop has stopped re-stocking its shelves and now only orders new drugs once a customer comes in with a prescription.
SNIP---
The Catsoula family, who live in the suburbs of Athens, are at breaking point. The two sisters and their elderly grandparents need various forms of medicine. Seventy-year-old Heleni Catsoula uses oxygen to help her with respiratory problems.
But she told Sky News: "The government reimburses me for the 100 euros I pay for the oxygen, but now they have stopped. They also used to pay the chemists for my drugs but they have stopped.
"Now I owe my local chemists 400 euros and I find it difficult to get my medication. If I have an attack, I don't even have petrol in the tank to get to the hospital. And nor can I afford the five euro entry fee."
The five euro hospital entry fee was a recent austerity measure introduced by the last government.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Obamacare
This is killing the elderly.
it is less than 7 dollars to go to the hospital but Mr and Mrs Mainstreet do not even have that. In order to save their country the Greeks need captialism. FAST.
No sane person will invest in a country with insane union rules or out of control protectionist regulations. (protecting the insiders from competition in fine banana republic style)
If greece leaves the euro, then so does spain and the dominoes start to fall. What do you do with 350 million people starving to death?
For peanuts.
In a socialist nation when the government finally collapses the economy, all it’s dependents die.
at what point does the euro as a currency collapse start to hurt the usa?
we already see this with the euro plunging to 1.24
History says they go to war...
still not good for the usa.
Margaret Thatcher said it. Sooner or later, socialists run out of other people’s money.
Pernod
It was the lethal drug of choice in "The Man with Two Brains"
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