Oh, and if you want to go the route of “universal health care will wreck the Canadian economy”, go for it, I’ve done that one before.
Lower unemployment, lower deficit/capita, lower debt/capita, better economic growth, quicker recovery from the recession… It does not seem that our health care system is hurting our economy much…
Don’t forget that the US is spending MORE per capita for health care - MUCH more. Explain to me how that is good for your economy.
What is the wait time in the US for a bypass if you have no insurance?
You still don’t get it and literally never will. You will never get the health care of an insured person in the US. I get the same care that Donald Trump and the Canadian Prime Minister gets.
I can show you what that looks like using your own cite. kidney stone removal. 182 day target, 74 day actual wait.
From personal experience I waited 2 hrs for the procedure. Not 2 days, not 2 weeks, not 2 months… 2 hrs. My diagnosis at the emergency room involved an immediate X-ray which was inconclusive which was followed up by an MRI. Diagnostics complete. I waited 2 weeks to try and pass it on my on my own which involved 3 more medical visits. One to my family doctor and two to the urologist. No wait involved. On the 2nd visit to the urologist he gave me a choice to wait longer or have it removed that day. Done.
I paid $1,800 out of pocket not to suffer 74 days. I had the privilege of paying that because I had the choice to do so. The vast majority of Americans have that choice and we’re working to close the gap. Only the wealthy or those willing to sell everything can afford this care in Canada. People who are in agony aren’t interested in a contest to be the most efficient spenders of health dollars. It’s the difference between an ambulance ride to the proper facility or a helicopter ride. I’m in the flight path of 2 hospitals and I can tell by the approach whether it’s a child or an adult being rescued. Rich or poor these people need the care and efficiency has nothing to do with it.
If you walk into a hospital and need it right then, zero.
But that has nothing to do with anything I’ve said. The difference between Canada and the US is that both will react to an immediate situation. Hospitals in both countries are bound to that tenet. Canada’s limitations are universal and difficult if not impossible to fix. In the United States, the limitations have already been addressed but not implemented. It needs to be decoupled from the business world but the general principal of making insurance available to all is there.
My personal experience and that of everybody I know (rich or poor) is better than what I see in Canada. Certainly your experience was not but I think it’s easier to fight insurance companies with the help of government legislation than it is to fight government run programs.
What are you talking about?
Every citizen in Canada gets the same coverage as the Prime Minister.
No one sells anything to pay for their medical care, because they don’t have to. My friend had robotic heart surgery, so cutting edge it was filmed by the Learning Channel, no wait, no cost.
My last surgery was scheduled so fast I couldn’t make it and had to reschedule it. My first mammo, I was sent directly to ultra sound as they saw something they wanted to look at, they also scheduled the biopsy, for 4 days later, before I left that day. No wait, no forms, no out of pocket costs.
These wait times you’re quoting are for people who can wait. So if your heart condition is such that we don’t feel it’s urgent, you get to wait in line. However if you are in distress you get the care immediately. It’s called triage. Unlike the US $ based system which is closer to pay to purchase. Got great insurance? Want a MRI, no worries. In Canada you only get a MRI if a doctor decides you need it. And if it’s urgent you get it immediately.
Wait times are what they are, in part, because the whole system is based on triage. There are people who wait 174 days for a hip. There are also people who get immediate access to surgery for the same thing. It’s based on their need, as judged by a doctor, instead of on the size of their wallets.
In America you get rapid access to better care, when you have money/insurance. And likely you are displacing someone else, who needs it more, but doesn’t have the money/insurance.
Who is this “we” you speak of? The gap is large, and growing larger every year. Conservatives certainly are not helping by opposing Obamacare.
Correct. That is factual data. So the actual wait time is much better than the target. Good, because the target is derived from looking at clinical outcomes.
Now not all of those on the waiting list for by-pass surgery are urgent cases. Clincally, they can wait. If their condition gets worse, they will move up the queue.
Can you now give me comparable data for the United States? Not anecdotes. Not “there is no wait”.
For patients in clinically similar situations,what is the current wait time? Is it more or less than 51 days? Does it differ depending on your insurance? Does it differ if you have no insurance? Can you move to the head of the line if you wave your cash about? Are the wait times dependent on how much money you have?
Really? You get to go to the US for health care if you don’t want to wait?
You can’t possible be unaware of Canadians seeking treatment in the United States.
Here’s an example of someone who successfully sued the Canadian health care system for reimbursement. So it’s possible to recoup payment from the government. It wasn’t possible to get the treatment.
Those are wait times of people forced to wait. They had no choice.
Yes, that’s what the words “choice” and “options” mean. You can wave money or seek another doctor if you don’t want to wait. I’ve never waited for anything. Ever. If my family doctor was backed a couple of days or a specialist was backed up I went to another doctor. There is no “target” in the United States. We don’t need one and I hope we never get to that point. Our “target” is to get everybody their own insurance.
I only posted the target Canadian time frame to show the absurdity of it. The ACTUAL wait times speak for themselves.
Great. It’s exactly the same in Canada. If you walk into a hopsital and need it right then, there is no wait. If you need an operation RIGHT NOW based on clinical decisions you will get it.
This makes no sense to me. The difference is they’re both the same?
And Canada had made great strides in reducing wait times for a variety of surgeries, as well as reduced the wait for diagnostic imaging.
If you don’t know what is going on in the Canadian healthcare scene, it would behoove you not to pretend to know.
Again, your personal experience and anecdotes are not data. I am not talking about my experience. I am talking about population data.
The data shows that you are wrong.
And public pressure on politicians about healthcare has come up with surprisingly good results. Politicians seem to be quite sensitive to the voters wishes. Fancy that.
Most of my relatives are in Ontario and we’re in the US. My cousin is a doctor himself and I know he has sent his own family to the US to get care when he thought waiting wasn’t prudent, or simply desirable. My BIL best friends ( also a doc, practicing in Boston) are Canadian and they sent their elderly mother here to get surgery when her knee was deteriorating so much during the wait for a replacement that she’d be ineligible.
The inequities in the US are unconscionable. The uninsured here are screwed on every level- from preventative care to emergency and everything in between. But, the Canadian system has it’s flaws too, and not all are benign.
Then post the actual wait times for actual patients in the United States, not just your personal experience.
You realize that your argument boils down to “I’m OK, I have money and insurance, so I am happy - to hell with everyone else. It’s all about me.” If you’re good with that, fine, but at least be up-front about it.
the opposition to Obamacare is the linking of it to businesses. Republicans had their own plan which was ignored. It’s not a function of business. They did this despite the already high unemployment and mortgage collapse. unemployment has not gone down in 3 years but has gone up. Nobody, NOBODY is against health care reform.
This is true, and nobody is saying otherwise. Bad situations will pretty much always be with us, and there are still vast improvements to be made.
In a head to head comparison when looking at the health of the population in the country though… The Canadian system is demonstrably superior
Currently you’re using US facilities across the border to cover the gap. What’s going to happen if the US goes to socialized medicine and shortages ensue? Those 74 day waiting periods will by default get longer.
The numbers of “medical tourists” are very small. Rarely, there are some procedures that will be done in the US and covered by a provincial plan - but this is a stop-gap measure until something better can be put in place.
There are also some wealthy folks who will head down south to jump the queue. Again, very small numbers. Yes, these folks will be out of luck if the US moves away from “pay to get well”. However since the numbers are so small, this will not have an appreciable effect on wait list times in Canada.
I suggest to you that getting your information from the popular press is hampering your ability to critically analyse a complex situation.
Possibly YOU are unaware of people in the US traveling to India, Thailand, and other places to have surgery because the cost of the plane ticket and paying out of pocket to do that is cheaper than having the surgery in the US.
When I call for a doctors appointment, they do not say" c’mon down’. I get an appointment in about 3 or 4 weeks. That is a waiting period. Try and get an appointment with a specialist. They have a person working for them who has to remind you it is coming because you have to wait so long for it. I waited about 4 or 5 months to see a dermatologist.
If you go to emergency, it is a long boring night of waiting and waiting.
In Canada and many other countries, nobody declares bankruptcy because of health care. It is a factor in 62 percent of our bankruptcies and most of them supposedly had insurance. We have a totally fucked up medical system.
A profit driven system will result in denied coverage. It is about money after all. It also makes the system worse. Our medical care is way down the list of the World Heath Org, ratings. We get bad medicine for extremely high prices .
If money is no problem. it is possible to get top flight cutting edge health care. But not for you. You get the least care insurance companies can get away with providing.
http://traversecity.injuryboard.com/miscellaneous/insurance-company-doctors-round-2.aspx?googleid=231394
For those outside America, this is how our system works. Insurance companies will do anything to increase profits. That anything includes denying coverage to people who have paid for it. I don’t know how far worse a medical system could go. Ours is fundamentally flawed and will never provide care to the people as long as profits are increased by denying care and cheating your customers. We should be ashamed of what we have created.
I’m absolutely aware of it as I’m aware of the amount of the increase in my policy that was the direct result of Obamacare. It would have tasted better if I wasn’t lied to about it because I want everybody to be able to get insurance. Everybody with a brain cell knew it was going to raise the cost of insurance to those who already had it. I’ve been following the cost of my insurance since 1977 (age 19).
I sold my possessions to stay insured which I was fortunate enough to do. I’m quite happy with any legislation that opens up private insurance across the board. I’m not happy with the current method of paying for it. I now pay slightly less for insurance through my company but I’ve traded HMO crap for catastrophic limits. I’d much rather pay for regular insurance and get the savings for the company in the form of sick days.