As a Canadian my mom waited 16 months for a hip transplant. She could barely get around her house, but she was deemed “lower priority”.
While my coworker in the Bay Area got her a choice of surgery slots less than a month out.
There are trade offs.
While my coworker in the Bay Area got her a choice of surgery slots less than a month out.
There are trade offs.
Here, once the government decided that your disease, surgery or therapy wasn't "essential" you couldn't do anything at all because the private system can't do most them either. Both of my parents are nurses & according to them at one point their hospitals were almost entirely empty, but because of that arbitrary you still couldn't access most non-urgent care which was very frustrating for them.
That said, knowing our courts, they'll just say 'stuff it' and that's that.
Also, 80% of Canadians live a 1 hour drive to the US border.
The 'fallback' to the Canadian system - is the US system.
I don't think either systems are ideal, we need somewhat more private service in Canada, and the US needs socialized coverage of some level along with private.
The big giant social issue that nobody wants to talk about, is that the 'pyramid' in the US is so much bigger than in Canada for so many reasons. The US upper middle class are much richer than in Canada. And the poor are really poor. There are 1M undocumented workers in each of Cali and Texas - if you put them on the books, it stretches the disparity even further.
This makes it harder to impose a 'one size fits all' system.
That said - all basic HC services should be minimally covered through the state.
The number of people putting up 'Go Fund Mes' is nutty.
People are also legitimately wary of governments ability to effectively provide for services, which is a legit concern. The government can be just as corrupt and inefficient ans the private sector, and it's not nearly as easily displaced.
Finally - I would like to see the 'Walmart' of Healthcare come along and do damage to the big providers. Walmart works on a cost basis and their pricing is based around reducing cost, then adding a very small markup - which is different than other businesses. If I was President I would probably beg Walmart to literally start providing basic services.
That works pretty well in Finland. One of my parents needed a cataract surgery this year, all cased and diagnosed by doctors in public healthcare. The actual surgery would've been maybe six months from now. Private clinic -- three weeks. My parents didn't even go shopping for another clinic, waiting three weeks was no problem. It also cost much less than they anticipated, a quick routine operation not worth the wait.
Even Medicaid or Medicare patients in the US don’t wait 16 months for hip transplants.