this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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The only people who believe that wait times would be worse under a public health care system are people who don't currently need to access health care under a private health care system. I'm an American who unfortunately needs to see specialists relatively frequently and the wait times are already atrocious.
It’s worse than you think
It’s government funded private care and at least in Ontario there isn’t any oversight or accountability allowed for private centres
Yea, the cultural lore surrounding public healthcare in the states is really funny. You can have people waiting months for things with our shitty system who will still say that wait times with public healthcare would be horrible.
Maybe. I guess if I had to choose between a financially debilitating procedure with a long wait time and a free one with a slightly longer wait time, I'd choose the latter.
That’s what drives me nuts about this talking point. As someone with a condition that requires specialists and lands me in the ER a lot, wait times in the US are abysmal. Referrals to specialists often take months or more than a year, and even after getting in it can be several months to schedule an appointment. And ER wait times are absurd, rarely less than 5-6 hours, usually 8-12 or more.
I'm one of the few who even have a primary care physician but I really only see them basically annually to get my blood pressure meds, or for general non-urgent health concerns like, "I'm tired all the time, is it that I'm in my mid thirties, or do I have low testosterone like my dad?" The wait time is usually like 4 months unless I think it's urgent, then they can usually squeeze me in in the next 3-4 weeks. I don't normally have to schedule the blood pressure visit but only because they'll schedule it a year out for me when I'm there.
Anything else, like respiratory infections, covid, flu, strep, etc... urgent care is my only option and unless I get there at 6am when they open it's usually a 4 hour ordeal.
You're lucky to get treatment in 4 hours at urgent care. Where I live there is one clinic for over 100,000 people. You show up at 4am and that's usually too late. They regularly put up a sign on the door that says "Was are only seeing 10 people today. Go to the local ER if you need medical care." When you go there you can wait up to 2 days... or you give up and go home... or try in another nearby city.
My family and I save up our medical needs and get it dealt with when we travel. It's faster and easier to pay cash for medical treatment when we are overseas visiting family than it is here in Canada.
See here the problem is when any kind of healthcare conversation starts in Canada the US always gets brought up as a sledgehammer to shutdown any further discussion. I live in the US and nobody thinks the US system is the solution for anything. But there are dozens of working examples in Europe and Asia that are worth learning from. Canadians need to look beyond this continent.
Well, if you were a billionaire with private doctors and access to preferred care then you would be way better off than someone in Canada, ergo the American system is better.
That's the only performance based argument in favor of privatized care that I can think of.