obamacare

PJ_Soul said:

mace1229 said:

Continuing from the voter ID thread:

"

Gern Blansten Mar-A-Lago Posts: 23,368

8:04AM  Flag

wait times are a myth....there are wait times here worse than Canada

From what I've read Canada does it right. Yes there are wait times but they are generally for non life threatening procedures."



Not sure show to do quotes from one thread into another.
I've heard Canadians, or people who have lived there, say it isn't as bad as people say, as far as wait times. But there's a lot of documentation to suggest it is bad.
It's like an ER, it's not bad for life threatening things. So if you're young and healthy, maybe you haven't experienced a long wait time for something that isn't life threatening. But when you need a hip replacement and can't walk, that extra 3 months can be pretty annoying.

This is one of the first articles I saw on it: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/canadians-continue-experience-long-waits-mris-and-ct-scans

"the median wait between referral to a specialist by a general practitioner and receipt of treatment was 30 weeks in 2024, the longest on record.
Canadians also face significant waits for key diagnostic services. In 2024, the latest year of available data, patients could expect a 16.2-week wait for an MRI"

Compared to 2-4 weeks in the US as reported here: https://nchstats.com/medical-procedures-wait-times-us/

16 weeks vs 4 weeks for an MRI is pretty insane. If that's accurate, I would say the Canadian health care system isn't only not gold standard, but also broken. 

I've never waited longer than 3 weeks for any scan, including MRIs. Others have waited way longer. It really depends on the hospital, city, doctor, etc. The Canadian system is far from perfect (of course people only ever report when it doesn't go well - nobody ever says anything when everything went fine), but it is FANTASTIC compared to the US system, seriously. I don't understand Americans who try to defend what is a massive systemic attack on human rights by talking about some issue other countries' systems might have. It's crazy. 

Oh, and the Fraser Institute??? BAAAAHAHAHAHA. FYI, that is a right wing think tank that ALWAYS skews against universal healthcare. One should never take what the Fraser Institute says at face value. 

for some reason i skimmed this and misread fraser as the kramer institute and had a chuckle. i have been streaming seinfeld lately so maybe that is why.

Tim Simmons said:

Dr. VanNostrand, from the clinic. 

lol yep

PJ_Soul said:

mace1229 said:

Continuing from the voter ID thread:

"

Gern Blansten Mar-A-Lago Posts: 23,368

8:04AM  Flag

wait times are a myth....there are wait times here worse than Canada

From what I've read Canada does it right. Yes there are wait times but they are generally for non life threatening procedures."



Not sure show to do quotes from one thread into another.
I've heard Canadians, or people who have lived there, say it isn't as bad as people say, as far as wait times. But there's a lot of documentation to suggest it is bad.
It's like an ER, it's not bad for life threatening things. So if you're young and healthy, maybe you haven't experienced a long wait time for something that isn't life threatening. But when you need a hip replacement and can't walk, that extra 3 months can be pretty annoying.

This is one of the first articles I saw on it: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/canadians-continue-experience-long-waits-mris-and-ct-scans

"the median wait between referral to a specialist by a general practitioner and receipt of treatment was 30 weeks in 2024, the longest on record.
Canadians also face significant waits for key diagnostic services. In 2024, the latest year of available data, patients could expect a 16.2-week wait for an MRI"

Compared to 2-4 weeks in the US as reported here: https://nchstats.com/medical-procedures-wait-times-us/

16 weeks vs 4 weeks for an MRI is pretty insane. If that's accurate, I would say the Canadian health care system isn't only not gold standard, but also broken. 

I've never waited longer than 3 weeks for any scan, including MRIs. Others have waited way longer. It really depends on the hospital, city, doctor, etc. The Canadian system is far from perfect (of course people only ever report when it doesn't go well - nobody ever says anything when everything went fine), but it is FANTASTIC compared to the US system, seriously. I don't understand Americans who try to defend what is a massive systemic attack on human rights by talking about some issue other countries' systems might have. It's crazy. 

Oh, and the Fraser Institute??? BAAAAHAHAHAHA. FYI, that is a right wing think tank that ALWAYS skews against universal healthcare. One should never take what the Fraser Institute says at face value. 

But was that data wrong? Just because it was a conservative institute doesn't mean the data was wrong. I read through several articles, and could not find one that suggested the rumored wait times for Canada were not bad. It's easy to laugh at a source because you don't like it, but then provide some data that suggests it was wrong. They all stated wait times in Canada are among the worst for developed countries. It's usually worse for older people as well, I can assume because when a younger person needs a scan, it is due to a more serious injury or condition, which will speed up the process. One article I read stated than 11% of people were never seen within 1 year of a specialist referral. Now, they probably aren't life threatening conditions, but if your living with a undiagnosed disease, waiting over a year to see a specialist is pretty miserable.  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7292524/

Also, I have yet to meet a single person who defends the health care system here. I was just pointing out the biggest fear I hear people talk about when discussing moving to socialized health care. People who can afford healthcare here, and are willing to pay the premiums, would rather keep doing that than move into an unknown system with wait times several times longer (or worse) than what they are used to. Addressing that issue would make more people open to the idea of socialized medicine. Being weary of wait times that are often associated with socialized medicine does not mean they are happy with the current healthcare system here either.

The other reason people don't like universal healthcare is the cost in taxes. I asked AI yesterday what the average taxes are for someone making 80k, assuming it was accurate, it actually isn't that much higher than some states like California. But is significantly higher than other states with low tax brackets, so just depends on where you live. But if you're in California, it would only be a small increase.

Gern Blansten said:

Part of the problem in the US is this idea that employers cover health insurance. If it was pushed down to the individual level people would actually know what they are paying and would do something about it.

Every level of our healthcare system has a profit motive. That's our problem. 

I have an orthopedist client that was making about $1mil. Roughly $600K salary and $400K in profit off of a surgery center. Basically all the docs get to invest in the surgery center and split the net profit. That split is done mainly to increase Medicare reimbursement since it is separate from the hospital.

the model now is to push all healthy patients to have surgery at those surgery centers to increase their own profits. these patients have to be healthy with no issues that could possibly require an overnight stay. now they are doing total knee and hip replacements at these centers on an outpatient basis. patients used to have to stay one or two nights for those procedures. now they are being sent home. i think part of that is so that they do not pick up a bug in the hospital that could cause their incision to get infected. another part is to keep insurance costs down. and i honestly think the other part is to give surgeons something to market on, such as have your knee replaced and recover at home.

i have been in thousands of surgeries in my career. i am just not there yet with the outpatient total joints. i think too much can go wrong. if someone has to get readmitted, that is a huge issue and a huge cost.

Gern Blansten said:

Part of the problem in the US is this idea that employers cover health insurance. If it was pushed down to the individual level people would actually know what they are paying and would do something about it.

Every level of our healthcare system has a profit motive. That's our problem. 

I have an orthopedist client that was making about $1mil. Roughly $600K salary and $400K in profit off of a surgery center. Basically all the docs get to invest in the surgery center and split the net profit. That split is done mainly to increase Medicare reimbursement since it is separate from the hospital.

I'm self employed and without ACA I'm dead duck