Canadians starting to demand the privatized USA Health Care system.......

[SouthernLiberal]

42. I've never had knee surgery

But I do have Rheumatoid Arthritis (not creaky joints... a serious auto-immune disease that can be crippling and even fatal if not treated) and 'really good' insurance. It took me two years to see a specialist, and then another year or more to find a specialist who would actually believe my test results and start treating me. If my case of RA had been more aggressive than it has been, I could have been crippled for life in that amount of time.

So maybe elective surgeries get treated faster here (perhaps because surgeons make a LOT of money), but that doesn't mean that there aren't insured people who are waiting for care that is life and death.

Because I did have to wait so long to get properly treated for a disease that is as serious as RA does not leave me at all sympathetic to the 'we don't have to wait like those Canadians do' argument. Of course, with this disease, if I did not have insurance through my employer, I could not have gotten treatment at all. I sure could not afford all the medication I have to take for it, either.