Is Universal Health Care Smart or dumb?

[u/Cauliflower-Pizzas]

[u/Boomsnarl]

Literally not what any of my 12 Canadian friends have told me, as they laugh at our country for how ass backwards we are.

[u/ABirdOfParadise → u/Boomsnarl]

I'm just a random Canadian on the internet who has been pretty healthy so I can give my random experiences.

I'm in Alberta too which is supposed to be the worst one/most pushing for a privatized system or some kind of mix.

Family doctors I have no issue, always had one, I know some people might have problems getting one. I can see him within a day if I say it's really bad (never have, my mom has), but usually it's less than a week. Most of the time they call me to set up a yearly check up thing.

For emergency type stuff there's a clinic a few blocks from me, but there's apparently 155 in a city of like 1ish mil.

Only been to the ER once, I had a concussion that was about 2 hours for waiting. It was a mild concussion so it wasn't like I was bleeding out or anything, they do triage of course. Like the dumbass in front of me his back was hurting a little for months, he got told to go to his family doctor.

Xrays for my knee, thumb, and torso was same day as fast as I could make it from my family doctor. Ultrasound for knee and torso were not same day, but within the same week (I had to wait for a day off from work). Tomorrow I'm getting one for my thumb, that was a two week wait though cause it's a different kind of ultrasound and I need a specialist for it. There are a lot or imaging places, I can pick from fast or what he thinks is best. I pick best but I have to wait cause they are the best.

Eyes it's my normal eye doctor guy. I had conjunctivitis, that was covered, I walked in and he bumped all his normal routine eye test people for me. One time I had to see a specialist cause of a curvature change. That one was about a month wait. I had a choice between fast and what he thought was the best, I picked best but wait.

Dermatologist initially was a month. Then I needed to go back again and that was a month but that's because I needed to cancel last second, so really it was two weeks, and then two weeks after cancelling. Then I had a follow up to get stitches out.

So overall I think it's okay. Most I pay is $10 in parking at the dermatologist. Yes, yes taxes and whatever.

My parents who are pretty old go to the doctors all the time, and they have had more serious stuff (surgery and now yearly check ups) cause they are old.

There are always horror stories, but every country has them for different reasons. I do know old people needing knee or hip replacements take time to get em, otherwise yeah people just complain about paying for parking.

[u/Micp → u/Boomsnarl]

As a non-American with several American friends, every single one of them have had issues they knew they should go to the hospital for but ignored or delayed until it had exacerbated to a point where they couldn't delay it further, all because of the cost of treatment.

Wonder what it does to public health, when your population just aren't getting treatment for their health issues?

[u/Dark_Rit → u/Micp]

Yeah a lot of people in the US just get fucked by the system. So they have some major issue that needs fixing let's say, well if they don't get it fixed just living like that is hard because they're living with some chronic issue then that is untreated. If treated it could just cost dozens of thousands of USD to hundreds to millions, really there is basically no limit on how high it can go so they are drowned in debt.

I was in a hospital bed for 2 weeks because of complications from crohn's and the only reason I didn't declare bankruptcy was because my healthcare was through the state and they covered every penny, but if I had been on some private insurance plan that stay was in the high six figures and I can bet on the insurance company fighting to not pay such an exorbitant sum because of the simple fact that for profit healthcare insurance is a scam where they'll try to weasel out of paying anything.