Greece: 1 in 10 of Greece’s Poor Can’t Cover Health-Related Costs

One in ten of Greece’s poor can’t cover health-related costs, according to the OECD. This puts the country at the top of the OECD’s list for having the greatest level of social inequality in regards to health care.

The data is from the OECD’s ‘Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators’, and compares 26 OECD countries. It’s findings highlight that, on average, only 2.3% of the population has unmet medical care needs due to cost, distance or waiting times.

However, the number is significantly higher in Estonia (8.1%) and Greece (6.4%).  Notably, in Germany, Austria, and the Czech republic, this number is less than 0.5%.

Social inequality is by far the greatest in Greece, Latvia and Turkey, where there is a gap of over 6% points between the ability of the country’s rich and poor to cover expenses related to their medical needs.

Source: OECD

Contextualizing the data, the OECD notes that unmet needs for dental care costs are greater than medical care. In Greece, dental care is not covered by public schemes so these costs must be paid out of pocket or possibly through private health insurance. Over 7% of people in Greece reported unmet dental care needs.

In addition to not having enough money to cover medical costs, a small percentage of Greeks also cited that excessive wait times are a barrier to proper health care.

Meanwhile only a very small percentage noted that their distance to access health care services was a factor in their unmet medical needs.

The OECD report is based on survey data. Considering that Greece has many islands where health services are limited, it is unclear if the survey sample included feedback from these outlying areas, which may change the results, particularly regarding distance to access medical care.