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Comment by whynotminot | Hacker News Reader

Which may take us to a sort of “Jevens Paradox” kind of place except for medical care.

Like there are times already where I’ve put off or not sought medical care because of the hassle involved.

If I could just waltz into the office and get an appointment and have an issue seen to same day I would probably do it more often.

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Wonderful insight that I'd never considered. Talk to almost anyone in America and they'll tell you about a health issue that they or their family are deferring due to lack of access. Waiting months or years to simply talk to a specialist, let alone find one that can help, is sadly the norm. Patients rightly feel it's a waste of their time so won't even seek treatment.

Remove that barrier to access and we won't see a shiny new streamlined medical system but rather a flood of new patients requiring even more bureaucracy to manage.

100% why I bothered to stick w/ OneMedical after the Amazon acquisition. I tried to get a "New Dr/New Patient" appointment with any local doctor I could find that took my insurance, and the closest I could get was 3 weeks away.

I'm not worried about medical folks having "time to clean" any time soon.

To be clear, we also need more medical professionals in general -- they're not keeping up with the population and it's making us all less healthy. Three to six months, or more, in the SF bay area for some critical appointments is really unacceptable, but there's not really an option given supply and demand.

I'm sure this will all get better with captain brainworms at the helm.

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