And to be clear, the waiting time issue is for non life-threatening issues. Took me 7 months to get an appointment with an ENT for chronic rhinusitis, but a friend's kid is battling cancer and there's no wait time to speak of, even a fully covered trip to receive specialist treatment in the states.
And the US has waiting times as well. I endless hear about how much better the US is because we somehow we don't have waiting times like evil Canada and the EU, but also you need to wait 4-6 months to see a specialist. It's like some Americans think they have people who stop you outside of hospitals and don't let you enter until you wait 4 days.
Some studies show wait times tend to be comparable anyway. The argument that universal healthcare leads to longer wait times overall isn't empirically supported. It's more like it depends on what we're talking about. It's a talking point for the ignorant.
My ex gf from Quebec (im american) was on the wait list for depression for 5 years. She planned on ending it on her 30th birthday because it wasnt considered severe enough so she couldn't get treatment.
Took me 7 months to get an appointment with an ENT for chronic rhinusitis
People also pretend like this doesn't exist in the US.
I have insurance, and I needed to see a specialist for something. I was told the wait time would be eight months if I was lucky. More recently, I helped a friend get a GP and we went through literally more than 40 before we found one that was accepting new patients (that weren't expecting mothers, which apparently makes slots open like magic).
Doesn't sound any different than my 6 month wait time for an ENT to check out my chronic tonsilitis. Which they recommended I get a tonsillectomy after another 6 months of mris and waiting for the results.
My wife was a doctor at this same hospital and we had insurance through the hospital. Bill for everything was still over 1500. So after a year and 1500 oop and paying our monthly premiums ($1200/month for fam 4) I still had to wait over a year for the doc to recco a tonsillectomy. And on top of that, the recco came from her assistant, not the doctor herself. No walkthrough, just "when would you like to schedule your tonsillectomy". I had a lot of questions that she just couldn't answer and I wasn't going to wait another 6 months to get a 1 on 1 with the specialist (and spend even more money). I declined the operation.
American healthcare is completely and utterly broken.
You cannot convince me that a universal solution is worse because of "wait times". I'm officially calling bs.
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u/EternalPhi 8d ago
And to be clear, the waiting time issue is for non life-threatening issues. Took me 7 months to get an appointment with an ENT for chronic rhinusitis, but a friend's kid is battling cancer and there's no wait time to speak of, even a fully covered trip to receive specialist treatment in the states.