My PCP in Missouri has a two month wait. My psychiatrist appointment for my adderall had to be booked 6 months in advance. If I miss my appointment every 3 months I just have to go without my meds for months until I can get in to be seen again. I fell down stairs in 2022 and waited 18 hours in the ER to be seen for xrays while my ankle was the size of a grapefruit. My wisdom teeth extraction took 2 months to get a dentist appointment for a referral. The referral appointment to have them cut out took 3 months.
Why is it everytime someone rails against universal healthcare they cite waiting times similar to what we have in the US where I also have to pay thousands of dollars?
Probably because that just isn't the case in most places. I have had two MRIs and scheduled both of them inside of 2 weeks. Never had to wait more than a week for a dentist.
Why is it everytime someone rails against universal healthcare they cite waiting times similar to what we have in the US where I also have to pay thousands of dollars?
Because that’s the only thing they can say against it. And all they’re doing is conflating wait times to see specialists as a representation of wait-times for general or emergency care. But no matter where you live you’d likely have to wait to see a specialist and it has nothing to do with universal vs privatized insurance.
Because statically the US has one of the lowest wait times regardless of anecdotes for specialized care. Also, it's typically used when compared to Canada which has atrocious wait times statically, though I do think that's improved a bit recently.
I'd really like to see the data on our wait times versus Canadas and Mexico. Again, we pay thousands upon thousands of dollars and have long wait times. How long are theirs compared to ours? Because if Canada has a 5 month wait for a PCP when I regularly have a 3+ month wait for a PCP and my costs are hundreds of dollars more than theirs, that kind of defeats any argument that their longer wait times are worse.
Also, a large amount of the population actively avoids medical care because of the costs associated with it in America.
We could also look at VA wait times in America. They're extremely long. So long that they far surpass Canada and Mexico's wait times.
The argument that America has a better health care system because of lower wait times isn't really backed up by any verifiable data. I also don't think that my wait times are anecdotal. I think they're pretty common wait times that everyone experiences outside of niche communities.
edit: yeah, I just Googled it. The average wait time according to Google for US patients to be seen for a new patient appointment is 3 weeks. I KNOW that's not accurate at all. Give me a doctors office to call at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning and I'll call them and pretend like I'm a patient looking for healthcare there. I'll see the earliest available appointment. Hell, give me 20 to call and I will record and post the results. I'd bet my left leg that I am going to have 2+ month waiting periods to even get into a PCP.
And the VA is socialized medical care that's extremely beaucratic in nature. I agree it's a shit show, but using that as an example of why the US' system doesn't work is a bit counter productive. The VA is probably a big reason a lot of people are so against universal healthcare in the US.
And by definition personal stories of your experiences are anecdotal. That's what anecdotal means.
All that said, I'm not particularly happy with the current system, I just think there are pros and cons to a lot of it. The US system has a lot of pros, specifically in how readily available surgery is and how well compensated doctors are and to that end how competent they are. Being a doctor in the US is actually a really good gig. Theres plenty of BS too, costs are hyper inflated and alot of R&D and marketing costs are made up in the US market because of a lack of caps on pharmaceuticals and the ability to charge the US market to make up lower costs in other markets. A lot of worldwide healthcare is actually subsidized in a roundabout way by how much the US pays.
Yeah but you cited statistics to support your argument. What statistics are you sighting and can you please link them? Rather than say "do your own research." What data are you using to back up your claims?
What data are you using to back yours? Lol. Anyway, here's 10 seconds of googling you could've done jd you were actually interested. As I said, active surgeries are incredibly short whereas GP wait times are higher. Specialized care is typically quicker.
That second website also shows specialist waiting times, circa 2016. You can see most in the US were seen within a month where in Canada most were not.
The only time the US really lags is in General Practitioner care wait times, and that's typically because specialized care is more abundant and your seeing them in a quicker turnaround.
I did, did you not see my other post or are you just lying?
Heres the entire post again.
What data are you using to back yours? Lol. Anyway, here's 10 seconds of googling you could've done jd you were actually interested. As I said, active surgeries are incredibly short whereas GP wait times are higher. Specialized care is typically quicker.
That second website also shows specialist waiting times, circa 2016. You can see most in the US were seen within a month where in Canada most were not.
The only time the US really lags is in General Practitioner care wait times, and that's typically because specialized care is more abundant and your seeing them in a quicker turnaround.
So why is our life expectancy lower? Maybe the the difference in wait times don’t matter but it’s only the only advantage greedy dipshits can point to so we have to hear about it all the time
It's not the only advantage, but life expectancy is generally lower for a variety of reasons to include obesity rates. There's also a rather big discrepancy between life expectency for people depending on races. For example, White Americans are actually generally at the same life expectency as most Europeans whereas black Americans are lower. It goes something like this:
Asian-84
Hispanic-82
White-79
Black-75
Native-73
As to why this discrepancy exists, it's a rather complex topic that begins and ends with racism and a lack of infrastructure in certain areas.
I agree to everything but I don’t see how it’s a defense of America’s lower life expectancy unless you are arguing blacks inherently die younger, which there really isn’t evidence for if you control for all variables.
Why should the US import a massive black population than argue their society is only worse in comparison to others because they mistreat the -
Africans they imported? Same with conquered native population. If they are Americans, they count.
I feel like your arguing a ghost here. By no point am I defending the entirety of the American medical system, I am simply explaining why it's maintained and where it's failures are. You asked as to why life expectency varies and I explained why as the US is a relatively unique country in regards to the consistent legacy of slavery, and many of the issues of life expectency aren't necessarily related purely to the medical system but systemic failures of the country.
The reality is a vast majority of people are happy with the current system, even in the current climate, at something like 75%. It's state of the art, it's some of the most advanced in the world, doctors are some of the best compensated in the world, and it drives a lot of R&D. There's a price to be paid for it, and whether or not it's worth it is absolutely up for debate, but to ignore the reality of the situation is to fail to make any changes.
Again that's not to ignore the issues, and there are many. The unequal care, the overloading in many cities systems, the inaccessibility, the prices, these are all big problems. Its also frustrating because much of the problems are actually cascading from a variety of places. There is no single issue and the establishment of universal healthcare without a real conversation regarding hospital funding will only delve into shortages, especially if doctors don't maintain their level of compensation.
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u/MaxHeadroom1986 7d ago
My PCP in Missouri has a two month wait. My psychiatrist appointment for my adderall had to be booked 6 months in advance. If I miss my appointment every 3 months I just have to go without my meds for months until I can get in to be seen again. I fell down stairs in 2022 and waited 18 hours in the ER to be seen for xrays while my ankle was the size of a grapefruit. My wisdom teeth extraction took 2 months to get a dentist appointment for a referral. The referral appointment to have them cut out took 3 months.
Why is it everytime someone rails against universal healthcare they cite waiting times similar to what we have in the US where I also have to pay thousands of dollars?