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Comment by ytNumbers | Hacker News Reader

In my opinion, the best yardstick for a health care system is how long you have to wait to be treated for cancer. By that yardstick, countries like Canada and England stack up quite poorly when compared to the USA. Canadians don't come to the US to save money on health care. They come to the US because they have an expensive potentially fatal medical condition, and they might not survive a six month waiting period for treatment.

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The wait time for cancer treatment for the poor in Australia is the same as the rich, whereas the wait time in the US for the poor is "have you made funeral arrangements?"

Having had a family member just go through the Australian health system for breast cancer, her treatment was on a time-scale of a few weeks, but she had the time and was being checked often. In the US, we'd be making funeral plans and bucket lists because they'd not be able to afford treatment.

The wait time thing is a total canard. Countries like Canada do have long wait times for things that do not require immediate attention. As an example, often you make your appointment for a physical a year in advance. And then, people who like to twist the facts into a false narrative point to the "year long wait time" to get a physical. Nonsense.

>In my opinion, the best yardstick for a health care system is how long you have to wait to be treated for cancer. By that yardstick, countries like Canada and England stack up quite poorly when compared to the USA

I don't know who told you that about Canadian healthcare, but it's simply not true.

When my mom was diagnosed, she underwent surgery within days, and was getting chemo/radiation as soon as was medically safe.

>In my opinion, the best yardstick for a health care system is how long you have to wait to be treated for cancer.

To quote a famous movie: well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion.

Why would the wait time (and not treatment outcome, or rate of occurrence) for one group of diseases be a good metric for evaluating the overall performance of a healthcare system?

In my opinion, it's a horrible metric. To give a car analogy, the 0 to 60 time in snow while towing is surely a metric, but there are other things to consider as well when you are buying a vehicle.

>[Canadians] come to the US because they have an expensive potentially fatal medical condition, and they might not survive a six month waiting period for treatment.

A lot to unpack here! But, first, the TL;DR is no[1].

More specifically:

1)Cite sources on people and England and Canada having six-month waiting period on cancer treatments in cases where urgent intervention is deemed necessary ("might not survive").

2)Look at the number of those cases.

3)Compare and contrast with similar cases in the US when people don't get treated because they don't have the money.

4)Look at the numbers again.

5)Look at how many Canadians do come to the US (in absolute numbers, as a percent of the Canadian population, and as a percent of patients seeking the particular treatment).

6)Stop perpetuating misleading opinions.

I won't cite the numbers - that's your homework when making bold claims. I found the numbers hard to find, which means to me that your claims are likely not substantiated.

I'll be glad to be proven wrong here.

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/10/...

Rather than pull up the specific data regarding US/UK/Canada, I'll just reply with a link to a general overview of how free (but rationed) government provided health care compares to what exists in the USA:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2019/03/05/what-soc...

I'd expect more from someone with "numbers" in the username.

Your source is wonderful. Here's my favorite part:

> In Canada, when patients see a doctor the visit is free. In the U.S., the visit is almost free

If someone can tell me how to move to that US, I'll be packing my bag right away!

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