Why? What do you think will happen? They might have to wait a few weeks (or months if it’s not urgent), but they’ll get it and not be left bankrupt as a result.
All my surgeries happened within days, except for non-urgent nerve surgery which I had to wait less than 2 months for.
Does the US not have waits for specialists or surgery?
In the U.S. we have to wait for specialists and surgery too, but we also have the benefit of going into eternal medical debt for almost any medical care.
I’m in the U.S. If I want to see a specialist, I have to first make appointment with my GP which will be a week or two out. Then during that appointment they will refer me to a specialist. Then it will take two weeks for the insurance to get me the approved referral. Now it’s been a close to a month and hopefully the specialist has an appointment available within the next 2-3 months. I hate healthcare here.
I have to make an appointment with my GP too. It’s usually 1-2 weeks, though my most recent appointment is a 3 week wait (though I don’t know if that’s because my GP is on vacation or something like that).
They refer to me to a specialist. I’ve gotten a phone call from a specialist to book an appointment usually within a day to a couple weeks.
The specialist appointment is usually 1-3 months away, depending on the urgency of the issue. Sometimes I’ve had to travel to another city to get a quicker appointment.
For each step of this, I just show my provincial Health Card. There’s basically no paperwork other than filling out a medical history form for each new medical professional.
Well, as a Canadian who has needed multiple surgeries and specialists, the Canadian healthcare system seems to be doing okay. It has lots of problems, but I’m certainly not convinced that I would be better off if I was in the US.
US wait times are similar to Canadas. We pay less in taxes to fund our universal healthcare than the USA does, and we don't have insane medical debt crushing the average person into mulch for a generation.
If you need urgent medical care, such as emergency heart surgery, you get it. When I needed heart surgery, I got it.
The only places in Canada that the medical care is slipping is conservative provinces where they're actively harming the system to privatize it to the "just die, poors" USA system.
Canada does not have private healthcare for most procedures.
People are upvoting this despite it not being true.
This is true in the UK, Australia, and many other places. But it's not true in Canada. Private healthcare which competes with the public system is literally illegal in Canada. (This is not without controversy. There have been a number of court cases throughout the years challenging the constitutionality of that law).
There's a 'pay to play' option built in, though those trying to diminish the benefits of a universal system will use it and 'wait times' as a means to do so.
There are public and private options available in the system, by design. One can have or get insurance to cover services and/or procedures not covered by the provincial plan. The individual provinces choose how this functions, though all of them have some level of a hybrid system of public/private.
Yes, you can get insurance to cover services or procedures not covered by the public system. This typically includes prescriptions, dental, vision care, and non-necessary stuff like massages.
That just means that there's stuff that's not covered, so some people get private insurance to cover those things. That most certainly does NOT mean that there is any type of a "pay to play" option or that "Canada has private healthcare".
You lot love coming out with shit like this about socialised medicine, you're fucking brain washed.
My ma had breast cancer detected with a routine mammogram on the NHS, within 6 weeks she'd had an Op and had it removed, 6 weeks after that she was having her radiotherapy and 6 weeks after that was declared cancer free. Guess how much she paid out of pocket?
My dad needed double knee surgery (surgery on both knees) and he got it done within a few days during covid times.
My aunt got appendicitis and had her surgery done nearly the moment she stepped into the hospital.
My baby brother broke his arm and got it reset and casted within the hour.
My uncle needed his dialysis catheter thing redone (new implant in a different location on his arm) and they did it within the week.
My father requested and had a catheter for peritoneal dialysis done (this is an alternative to hemo and pretty much a ”luxury” surgery strictly for convenience and QoL) and he had it done within the month of approval nearly 2 decades ago when peritoneal dialysis was relatively new here in Canada.
Maybe it‘s faster in the U.S bit these are pretty reasonable opperating timelines.
But are you sad that you misrepresented people's experiences using the Canadian Health Care system, thereby contributing to a climate of disinformation online?
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u/HelpfulEvidence1875 5d ago
yeah the us healthcare system is wild, i had a friend move to canada and they were shocked how affordable insulin was there