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The Greek national healthcare system has been dismantled by a series of measures imposed since 2010 in the primary and secondary health and pharmaceutical sectors by the country’s creditors. This article offers a critical analysis of the main budget-shrinking measures implemented in these sectors and discusses community initiatives intended to strengthen key social impact factors for health, including unemployment benefits, health insurance, and a guaranteed minimum income. It seems that such bailout-driven policies missed their intended target of efficiency and efficacy, while perhaps supporting the implicit project of building a “new European social model”, with a limited handful of benefits barely enough to keep the poor alive. The article draws on much scholarly research, interviews with Greek activists and healthcare workers, and a survey currently underway in Athens’ working-class district of Piraeus , to conclude that the forces fighting to protect democratic social rights have been (temporarily?) exhausted.