This is your country on socialized medicine.

Germany's Merck halts supply of cancer drug to Greek hospitals

8:03am EDT

FRANKFURT, Nov 3 (Reuters) - German pharmaceuticals firm Merck KGaA is no longer delivering cancer drug Erbitux to Greek hospitals, a spokesman said on Saturday, the latest sign of how an economic and budget crisis is hurting front line public services.

Drugmakers raised concerns with EU leaders earlier this yearover supplies to the euro zone's crisis-hit southern half and Germany's Biotest in June was the first to stop shipments to Greece because of unpaid bills.

Publicly-owned hospitals in some countries worst hit by theeuro zone debt crisis had been struggling to pay their bills, Merck's chief financial officer, Matthias Zachert, was quoted as saying by German paper Boersen-Zeitung in an interview on Saturday. He said however that the only country where Merck had stopped deliveries was Greece.

"It only affects Greece, where we have been faced with many problems. It's just the one product," he told the paper.

A spokesman for the company told Reuters that the drug concerned was Erbitux and that ordinary Greeks can still purchase it from pharmacies.

Some countries have taken action to pay bills, such as in Spain, where the government has said it will help hospitals topay off debts.

"That has improved things, even though the situation should still be regarded as critical for the coming years," Zachertsaid.

Erbitux is Merck's second best-selling prescription drug, bringing in sales of 855 million euros ($1.1 billion) in 2011from treating bowel cancer and head and neck cancer.($1 = 0.7785 euros) (Reporting by Frank Siebelt and Victoria Bryan; editing by Patrick Graham)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/03/greece-drugs-idUSL5E8M30ZL20121103

Key passages:

• Publicly-owned hospitals in some countries worst hit by the euro zone debt crisis had been struggling to pay their bills
• ordinary Greeks can still purchase it from pharmacies
• Some countries have taken action to pay bills, such as in Spain, where the government has said it will help hospitals to pay off debts.
  

An "ordinary Greek" must be one who can afford to pay for his own medical care. All the other ones -- who can't purchase it -- must be the ones who rely upon the public health system. That is, they must rely on the government to deliver on the goodies it promised when it made itself THE market in medical services. But the government is broke.

Socialized medicine rations healthcare, and rationing always causes shortages. Then it becomes a matter of somebody escalating force in order to compel supply - otherwise known as coercion, and possibly theft. So, as long as the government can continue to bully suppliers or squeeze taxpayers, Granny might get her medicine.

You'd think people would learn. But even if they do, by the time that happens, an entirely new generation of idiots has come along to be manipulated by politicians.