this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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Well yeah but you have those long wait times to deal with right?
Here in America, I only had to wait 4 weeks for a video conference (in-person would have been 6 weeks) with my primary care physician so she could recommend me to a specialist that doesn't have any openings until mid-August. Thank goodness I live in the land of the free where I only have to wait 3 months to see a doctor who has about a 20% chance to cancel on me last minute due to a "scheduling issues" and leave me hanging for another 4-8 weeks.
AND I get to pay for some of it out of pocket despite paying monthly for better than average medical insurance!
USA #1
I've opted to wait a year to change insurance companies so I could resume seeing my old doc instead of starting the process as a new patient under someone else, because honestly I'd be seen at a comparative time.
Canada here... yes wait times are a bitch
But it must be clarified this is not a result of socialized medicine... this is mostly a result of Politicians (largely Conservatives) starving the system as hard as they can just to justify Private Medicine as the only solution.
Just to be clear, you should have read my post in the most sarcastic voice you are capable of. I don't think 3 months is an acceptable amount of time to have to wait for a doctor's appointment and I think it's absolutely insane that I have to pay as much as I do for insurance and still have to pay something out of pocket for the visit. The only thing keeping me in this country is my partner's fear of starting over in an unfamiliar place.
You say this as though wait times aren’t a problem in America, but they are. Funnily enough, it’s one of the main arguments people use against socialized medicine. It is consistently the most disappointing thing ever; that people refuse to lift themselves out of their shit filled pools.
U.S. wait times aren't bad? When I tore my biceps, I was able to get x-rayed 1 hour after coming to the hospital, then got my surgery 4 days later.
That's emergency care. No one is waiting 3+ months for someone to set their broken leg.
Meanwhile, I'm dealing with what is likely some variety of IBD by getting up 3 hours early for work so that I can completely empty my bowels before my shift starts and I'll have to keep doing that for 7 more weeks until I even get to see a GI doctor.
Well the average is around 20-26 days. It can depend on the hospital and also the treatment. Sounds like you’re set up good, some people aren’t and you should advocate for them.
Can you give us a break down? How are politicians slowing down the speed of intakes - wait times?
I'm going to assume (against common sense, this is an honest question)...
Most recent example
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-underspent-health-budget-by-17-billion-in-2022-23-watchdog/
Less money = less staff, less maintenance, less services => more people with no choice but to go to Emerg, hospitals that work putting out fires all the time with less staff to go by... long term, it also causes people NOT too go into health care as a profession
They are literally planning to shrink hospital capacity
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/08/ontario-health-care-spending-doug-ford-hospitals-long-term-care/
That's... effed up. I mean that is a stupid fkin move. I never heard of shrinking hospital capacity, at least not in the sense of staff.
It seems like our socialized healthcare doesn't cover our sarcasm detector organ 😅
My squeedily spooch!
We have the option to go private too. My brother had his NHS appointment delayed due to doctors’ strikes so he went private and got his operation done very quickly.
Because he had insurance already it only cost him about £150.
Here in the States, the only non-private option is through the Veterans' Administration, which requires that one be a veteran or their direct family. It's also intentionally bad, overly bureaucratic, and extremely inconvenient (had to drive 40min outside of the state capital to get my then-housemate to a veterans' hospital once because he, a disabled veteran, couldn't afford care anywhere else), embodying the right-wing hatred of actually compensating veterans. In fact, right-wing administrations have been caught instructing officials to attempt to avoid providing veterans with their contractually-entitled care and benefits.
Those of us who are not veterans are stuck with the private US system when terrible wait times.
Always a fun time when you have to beg the ambulance crew to drive you to the VA instead of the closest hospital because it's the only way the VA will cover your ambulance ride. Despite Congress telling them they need to pay for them three times. They even passed a law and the VA immediately ignored it.
Then God help you if they decide your emergency wasn't actually an emergency. Because on top of all the other problems, a surprise medical bill was just what you needed.
Also, having the NHS as a direct competitor drives down the price, much like social housing did to house prices.
Its why certain types hate those two things.
A big part of the wait times is because of the healthcare coverage IMO.
In the USA, if you have a non-life threatening issue, that is more annoying than an actual problem, it usually gets ignored because nobody wants to go into debt for that.... Unless you're a millionaire or something, I guess.
Meanwhile in countries with socialized healthcare, if you're even slightly unwell (and even in cases where you're not unwell) you can get any number of procedures done to rule out any possible illness.
There's simply no good reason to not get checked out if you feel the need to be checked out.
Just to be clear, the point of my post was that I pay for insurance, pay for the visit, and I still have to wait 3 months to see a specialist. I'll then need to wait weeks or months for an appointment for any sort of procedure or scan.
I live in a place with socialized healthcare (Canada), and did a sleep study, which didn't cost me anything, in January... In about two weeks from now, I sit down with a doctor to review their findings.
The sleep study is very much a non-emergency. I did it because my lady has complained about the noise I make when I sleep, I also frequently get bad sleep for one reason or another.
It's non-critical, and I've spent more than six months waiting for results.
Bluntly, I'd rather wait longer than pay more. I know anything important/life threatening would be completed same-day, and I've had that experience too. Though, at the time, I wasn't really in a life threatening situation.
That's totally reasonable.
Oh yeah I tried to schedule an intake appointment with an allergist in early March and their earliest available was mid July lol
Edit: Grammar again lol
don't forget that if you live more than an hour away from a major metropolitan area, then you're not getting care from an actual MD, but a NP or PA who just got their "degree" from bob's discount medical credentials 10 minutes ago
If you want to argue there are bad NP and PA programs that's fine. But on the whole NPs and PAs are graduate level jobs with strict certification tests. And honestly? We extremely over train doctors to just look at cuts, bruises, and stomach aches all day. For 11 to 15 years education they should be running the place and tracking down the hard cases.
For me the most annoying thing about it is when you specifically make an appointment with the doctor and they change it to the midlevel without telling you. For certain things it can be a bit distressing (for me) to have a random stranger come in to do.
Yeah that's not good. They shouldn't pull a bait and switch like that.
I’m forty-five minutes outside a medium sized pair of cities known for a decent state university, and glad to run into town for care as needed.
Landed in the hospital three months ago with something that got me a follow-up scheduled with neuro, in the practice associated with the hospital.
Three months to the day later, I’ve only just had the suggested test and the visit is still a month out…. With an NP. Not the MD who saw me in the hospital.
Honestly, at this point, I’m only keeping after that issue because I need their clearance to get surgery for my actual, pressing, immediate, and painful concern.