INTERSECTIONS: US has longest health care waiting times [View all]

[eridani]

http://www.pickawaynewsjournal.com/intersections-us-has-longest-health-care-waiting-times-cms-2315

It is a common mistake to associate universal or near-universal coverage with long waiting times for specialized care. ( Read the previous sentence again-- a mistake to associate universal coverage with long waits.) The UK has short waiting times for basic medical care and non-emergency access to services after hours. The UK also has improved waiting times to see a specialist and now ranks fourth on this dimension with the US ranking third. Patients in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland have rapid access to elective or non-emergency surgery compared with patients in the US.

Again, it is a mistake to associate universal care for all with delays in care, seeing a specialist or elective surgeries. If this goes against the propaganda one commonly hears in the US, such propaganda being paid for by US health insurers and Big Pharma, then read the above paragraph again. Now, it is true that Canada is having some wait times for specialized elective care--this is NOT a reflection of universal care (read the above paragraph again), it is a reflection of some issues unique to Canada that Canadians are addressing--just as the UK addressed waiting times to see a specialist and now ranks just behind the US.

If universal coverage was the cause of waits, then US Medicare patients would be looking at serious delays. US Medicare patients are not suffering, for many they are safe from predatory health insurers for the first time in their lives (except for privatized Medicare Advantage plan patients, who face restricted, choice, narrow networks while costing taxpayers more). What is often cited is Canadians wait for elective knee or hip replacements--in fact US patients wait also, often voluntarily putting off joint replacements for years on end--and remember that for 37% of US patients without good insurance the wait is infinite.