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Comment by sloppycee | Hacker News Reader

I take it you have never experienced a true urgent health crisis?

Once you have you'll quickly realise that the 'long wait times' narrative is complete propaganda FUD.

Anecdote time: My sister is anaphylactic, when she goes to the ER she is admitted, hooked up, and given epi almost immediately. When my aunt couldn't move her arm one day, she got an MRI, diagnosed brain cancer, and had brain surgery in the same week.

I'm glad to have a system that when you are waiting it's because there are people with more urgent needs, rather than because there are people who paid more.

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Sigh. Do you think I was suggesting that emergency rooms in Canada should adopt a FIFO approach?

> Once you have you'll quickly realise that the 'long wait times' narrative is complete propaganda FUD.

This is a decent example of the typical Canadian attitude I was referring to, blind refusal to even acknowledge any issues, such as the well documented long waiting times for non-emergency procedures, as well as the outright refusal to treat ailments deemed "not important enough" by your doctor.

My understanding, as an American, is that people in single-payer countries tend to see doctors much sooner than Americans do.

Say I'm sitting around and I finally decide to get pain in my wrist looked at that I've had since I broke it ten years ago. I could see a specialist in less than a week. However, I probably would have had it looked at 7 or 8 years ago if I was in a single-payer system. Maybe I would have had to wait 6 months to see a doctor, but that still puts me about 7.5 years ahead of where I am now.

I know a lot of people who have bones that never healed right because an emergency room visit is going to cost you a fortune whether or not you are insured, so they don't go to the ER because it doesn't hurt 'that bad'. I imagine that is somewhat less prevalent in places with socialized healthcare.

Indeed, there are benefits to both systems depending on the situation. My point is that a significant percentage of Canadians are very dishonest about the shortcomings of our particular system....so when non-Canadians read things like "'long wait times' narrative is complete propaganda FUD", they have no way of knowing that the person is not telling the truth.

This is a very interesting point. I actually thought Americans with insurance went to the doctor for absolutely anything, and felt very entitled to that since they pay so much for their insurance. What you point out is that it might be the exact opposite - and although I do often think "oh, I won't bother them with this..", I never consider cost to be an issue..

Yeah, the thing is that our health insurance has a deductible still, and it's generally a percentage of the cost of the visit. Since prices aren't published, you have no idea how much anything will cost until afterwards. Even the doctors can't tell you how much anything will cost.

It reminds me of an old joke about things that don't have a listed price: "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." I think that mentality is really prevalent in the US when it comes to healthcare, regardless of how expensive the procedure would actually be.

I have some anecdotes

1. A friend of mine had severe back pains, all what he got from a family doctor was some painkillers and some stories that his back pain due to to weak muscles and he has to exercise more and wait a bit (3-6 months) before he can get some tests done. Anyways he moved to the US and week later made some tests to find that he has cancer in some serious stage. He started treatment but it was too late.

2. Another friend had spend 6 hours in ER with his eyelid cut in half (he got a branch into his eye while hiking).

3. I had some troubles with my daughter in Canada as well, don't want to go into details.

I eventually moved to the US and while healthcare here is outrageously and ridiculously expensive it is still years ahead of Canadian when you have a good insurance.

1 and 2 both sound quite familiar in the US system too. Ineffective and dismissive treatment for back pain is a common complaint, and long ER waits for non-life-threatening conditions are normal.

Anecdotes don't really do anything for us besides give us pointless things to argue about. You need to look at statistics like life expectancy, quality of life, average wait times, unnecessary deaths, etc.

The fact that you have to qualify your final statement with "when you have good insurance" is the whole problem. Before the ACA, that was far from a given, and even if you had good insurance it was too easy to lose. If Republicans have their way, we'll be back in that situation again.

I don't get it when people bring up situations like your #2. I'm sure it really, really sucked to wait six hours in the ER with an injury like that, but is it worse than staying home and trying to treat it yourself because you can't afford to visit the ER? Is it worse than dying from a simple condition because you can't afford to see a doctor?

> average wait times

Your doctor in Canada refusing to give you a referral to a specialist makes comparing these numbers not terribly useful.

> I don't get it when people bring up situations like your #2. I'm sure it really, really sucked to wait six hours in the ER with an injury like that, but is it worse than staying home and trying to treat it yourself because you can't afford to visit the ER? Is it worse than dying from a simple condition because you can't afford to see a doctor?

A system that allowed consumers to inject additional money into the system would increase the budget and managed properly(!), allow more total health care services to be provided to everyone.

Of course, "this will never work, all doctors will just move to the private sector" will be the refrain. Under our current society and so-called legal system perhaps, but put me in charge, I will put mandatory guidelines and levels of service in place, and then when doctors knowingly break the rules because based on history they well know they can do it without punishment, put a few of them in prison for 10 years, and watch compliance magically improve.

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