Political Memes

The wait times in the US are currently consistently problematic. An orthopedic is like a 2 month wait, a psychiatrist is a wait-list if you even manage to find one accepting new patients to begin with.

That's only for elective surgeries, not emergencies. The average wait times in the US are actually worse.

You can simply look at the data for avoidable mortality rates among OECD countries. This tells you the impact of healthcare access to early mortality that could have otherwise been avoided with better access to care. Time to care directly impacts these measures.

For 2022, the United States is only better than Latvia, Lithuania, Peru, and Mexico in avoidable deaths per 100,000 people. Every other nation in the data set with values is lower. Sometimes by more than half.

Every other western nation shits all over US stats in infant mortality as well, showing that when you remove obesity from the equation, you still get far worse quality of care from the start of life.

All this when paying 3X the amount to get the care in the first place.

The worst part is the US average person pays more than 4 times the amount of administrative care than then EU average. 4X for administrative costs.

It’s 9 times as much admin cost as countries like Italy who also have some of the shortest wait times to see a physician, or specialist, in the OECD data set!

Imagine paying 3X more per capita, waiting longer, and getting worse measured outcomes for decades… then still have people asking if they are getting a raw deal?

Let's see...

Prenatal classes, regular checkups, hospital delivery, overnight stay: Around zero dollars and zero cents. Birth of our second kid, also zero dollars.

My father's cancer treatment (bowel resection and colostomy, at least three different courses of chemotherapy and one dose of radiotherapy, complex resection of most of his liver, partial lung lobectomy, regular home visits by a palliative care Dr. And RN, hospice) cost my mom a bit for some dressing changes and incidentals, so maybe a couple hundred dollars worth of homecare supplies.

Four surgeries amongst immediate family requiring general anesthetic, about zero dollars.

At no point in time, during any of the above, did I ever have to consider if any of it was covered. No deductibles.

I have no complaints.

I always hear this retort though, the wait times are insane which can be problematic for people with serious urgent ailments,

That retort is from someone who has never shown up early for an appointment and had to wait until two hours after the appointment time just to see a Physician's Assistant. While watching pharma reps get casually buzzed in without an appointment. In a waiting room where you can't look in any direction without seeing some form of pharma merch.

Source: lived experience.

Let me post two anecdotes.

In grad school I was in Canada when I crashed my bike, nearly broke my jaw, broke a tooth in half exposing a root. A cop helped me bandage my face, I got a root canal the same same, X-rays, and pain killers. Didn't pay a cent.

In the UK on vacation I got a nasty eye infection and a corneal ulcer as a result. Went to the ER, was seen, treated, and given meds for the next two weeks within three hours.

I'm an American. If luck had been different, that could have been a lot of debt. In both cases neither country even had a method for me to pay them, they just took care of me.

Because it's the right thing to do, not because they thought they could bill me into poverty.

I just had an appointment with a specialist. In December. I scheduled it in July. December was their first availability.

My father was discovered to have a shadow in his lung during an xray taken of his back, this was from a private healthcare provider. They referred him to the NHS because they specialise in treating serious conditions above all else, the private doctor even said that they are the best org for cancer care in the uk.

Within a week he was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer. Two weeks later they had completely removed the infected lobe of his lung, and around a week later he was released from hospital cured.

Apart from the initial, privately done xray for his back, this cost him exactly nothing. Within 3 weeks of a cancer scare he was completely cancer free.

It's admittedly psychiatric care not emergency medical, but I've been impressed by Norway this year.

After a decade or so of chaos after leaving high school, I had realised earlier this year that I had some issue and sought help.

Start to finish, from GP appointment -> psychiatric evaluation -> tests -> specialist -> testing meds -> follow up, took 6 months, and I'm $275 out of pocket, and meds for 1 month cost $6.5.

Two things worth noting are that they absolutely nailed identifying my issue first go, and that I responded well to the first thing they prescribed me, neither of which necessarily happen for everyone.

I needed a neurologist once, and the earliest they could see me was 6 months later. It snowed the day of the appointment, so they cancelled and rescheduled it ...ANOTHER 6 months out.

Anyone who says the US doesn't have outrageous wait times is talking out their ass.