Not denying issues with our healthcare, but at least we don't have the wait times for care that other countries do, including Australia and Canada, where the average wait time to see a specialist after a GP referral is 2 to 3 months, and many procedures take a year.
Our medical provider shortage is hedged from doctors all over the world coming here for better pay and work environments. Move to single payer and I'd expect our wait times to be even worse.
Good, fast and cheap, pick two seems to apply to medical care like anything else.
I'd much rather have our system where 1/3 of us have medicare or medicaid, another third can ger subsidized insurance through the exchange, our hospitals don't refuse care, and we can get care relatively quickly.
I have the ability to go to Canada for care as I qualify for dual citizenship and I am close to the border, but after reviewing their system, it isn't worth it to me. My cousin needed surgery on his knee (could barely walk) and would have waited nearly a year (due the pain they said they'd try to prioritize him so best case was six months) so he paid out of pocket to have surgery in the U.S.
I'm fine with tweaks, but I personally would take our system over many others.
I don't know. In Germany my wife's chronic hip pain was getting worse. We called our family doctor, basically a PA with higher credentials which is the norm, as they can handle 90% of what ails you. She said, come on in. An hour later my wife was taking to her. She made 2 phone calls, one for an orthopedic specialist, 1 for an MRI. The specialist appointment was 3 days later, the MRI was the next Tuesday (by contrast I'm now in my 6th month waiting for an MRI on my neck, COVID or not that's just ********). So she sees these doctors, gets her MRI, and they diagnose her with bursitis caused by underlying hip dysplasia. They start treatment and within a month she can walk again without a hitch and sleeps through the night. It's been years since she slept through the night. So total time from first visit to physical therapy was about a month. Including MRI, follow up CT to confirm the dysplasia, and visits with 2 specialists, also to confirm the dysplasia. Total cost? $200 euros for various co-pays, and 15 euro co-pays for each PT visit.
Fast forward a year, we are back in America. The bursitis is flaring up. We call to get an appointment. 3 months out for our primary care physician. So we go to that appointment as it is required by our insurance at the time. He listens to her, we relay everything that happened in Germany. When we mentioned German doctors he rolled his eyes. Yeah, hah hah, 3rd world countries, amirite? Anyway he checks her mobility then says "you're fat. Lose weight." That's what every American doctor told her for years, even when she was barely 140 pounds, which at 5'8" and 40 years old and bring fairly athletic was a load of crap. So we say what about the dysplasia. He rolls his eyes, says it hardly ever happens. Sends us out grudgingly with a script for 800 mg ibuprofen and some physical therapy. We change doctors. Better bedside manner, basically same visit. Go to a third doctor, because the PT is basically useless. They do hot compress and massage, but nothing to treat the dysplasia so it does basically nothing. The underlying cause of the bursitis is not being treated. Finally we get to a specialist. He says...wait for it...lose weight. Not to mention in the meantime in an this she has lost 30 pounds with no improvement. He also rolls his eyes at "German doctors". Finally he orders tests. CT scan makes him order an MRI. He confers with another doctor. Hey, this might be hip dysplasia! What do you know? Orders different PT. Things start to improve.
And it only took 18 months and only cost me $6500. And that was on top of my premiums. Not counting physical therapy and medication. So even accounting for what I paid out of my check in Germany, since the premium is higher of course, we still paid more than $3000 more for the same treatment to finally get to the same conclusion.
No one can ever convince me that single player healthcare cannot be done effectively. That's corporate blinders talking. And apocryphal ********.
In taking to our German friends, our experience was pretty much the norm. No one complained about long waits. No one complained about cost, other than disagreeing about how the government spent the money, like everyone does. But they were by and large very happy with their healthcare.
Unfortunately neither Germany nor America keep national statistics on wait times so there is virtually no way to quantify it.
But I live in California now. Good luck getting in to see your doctor sooner than 6 months. And that was before COVID. And good luck ever getting into a specialist. I waited a year to get to see an orthopedic specialist. Then I got laid off, had to cancel, got new ******** insurance, and started the wait all over again. Yay! The lie that Americans don't wait is such ********. It's probably more a regional matter, but still.
Also my son is working a temp job and is too old to be covered under my insurance, so he just goes to the ER for whatever, eats the hit to his credit, and guess what? We all get to pay for him and every other person that does the same thing too! In higher costs across the board. Know what else we pay more for than any other country? Literally everything! We have the highest prescription costs (to the individual), highest hospital costs, we pay double the administrative costs of any other developed nation, if not triple. And for paying all that still a full 1/3 are either not insured or underinsured. But they still have health problems, so who pays when they default on medical bills? That's right, ALL OF US! ****ing brilliant.
So sign me up for universal health care. It is way past time we started treating medicine like a utility and not a luxury. America is so far behind the rest of the developed world it's just embarrassing.
www.americanprogress.org
www.forbes.com
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
www.abc4.com
