Work Reform

Canadian. Recently injured, reasonably severely.

Ambulance on scene, admitted immediately, consult, imaging, initial treatment and out in 3 hours. Multiple regular follow ups and imaging - none of which took more than an hour.

If you’re sick or injured you get seen pretty quickly.

As someone else put it - the system is really good at solving acute problems and saving your life.

Keeping you healthy - that’s more up to you (than it should be). It’s not close to perfect but I’d pick it any day over whatever it is in Lake Americaland.

If Canadians waits in an ER, that means that what they had wasn't life threatening and people with worse conditions took the priority over them.

If an American waits in an ER, it could be that their insurance company is delaying everything and hopes that they die so they don't have to pay for treatment.

if you are waiting 12 hours in the ER then you are probably there for a runny nose or something equally silly.

Triage is a thing that exists, and ensures that people get attention in the order they need it. . and when an ER is full of a mass causality event, your skinned knee or runny nose is not a priority.

Italy, socialized healthcare:

Last year I got involved in a crazy car accident that left me with serious injuries.

1 hour after the accident I already had the first MRI done, a specialist surgeon saw me, determined that my injuries needed a second MRI and a CT scan but that they were not life threatening. A couple of hours later I had all the required tests done and assigned a bed in a room to start recovering. 3 days later I had back surgery and some more days in the hospital to rest. My injuries were not life threatening but the OR was ready for me from the moment they called the hospital saying they were bringing a multi-trauma patient.

In a few months from now, I'll have to go back to remove the bars they put in my back to keep the vertebrae in place.

The total cost of the whole ordeal was exactly 0€ (unless we want to count the book I asked for to read something during my stay).

Fuck the US healthcare vigorously with a spiked stick. If this happened there, I'd be better dead because the debt I'd have now would be insane.

Hate to have to repeat this.

My late dad had a fell at home and broke his femur in two places.

Half an hour after his home fall alert was triggered, a team of paramedics was at his home. They got there before I arrived and had already stabilised and immobilised him.

An hour later he was admitted in ER, got checked and X-rayed.

Four hours later he was in the OR room, where they replaced half his femur with a piece of titanium. Then he was at the hospital for one week and then sent to a recovery clinic.

He paid zero € for all the process, including ambulance, intervention, ‘hardware’ and recovery.

Oh, this is Spain, not precisely the richest country in the EU.

Of course, if you go to ER because you’re sneezing, you will have to wait. But if you go to a private clinic using your private insurance you have to wait too…

Ah yes, this classic lie.

I fondly remember back in the olden days of news-papers reading an article that very fairly and balancedly compared ER wait times in the US to specialist referral times in Canada to show how badly socialized medicine was failing. More than zero people read that article and thought "USA! USA!" then went on to vote and share their ideas with people.

Then there was a big splash with a """study""" that actually compared ER times to ER times and the US freaking dominated!!! Of course, if you read past the headline you'd find cherry picked cases of "bleeding to death" in the USA versus "sniffles" in Canada.

Point being, there are many ways to lie and these bastards will try all of them.

If you're waiting 12 hours in the triage area of the emergency department, then you probably should have either gone to your primary doc, or an urgent clinic.

12 hours means either the waiting area is unusually full of extremely unstable patients, or you are especially stable yourself.

I get that not everyone has access to different levels of care, but urgent clinics exist to take the load off the emergency departments.

It's called triage. If you go in with a splinter you're going to have to wait behind the guy that came in after you with a piece of rebar through his skull.

Lots of people don't understand that it isnt a deli counter where you take a number and are called in order.

Many of these conservative "studies" compare wait times between Canadian booboos and American traumas without explicitly calling it out, and that's not a fair comparison.

The first thing I noticed when I was over in europe 30 years ago, is the hospital waiting rooms are small compared to American standards in larger cities.

The reason: routine non-emergency care is handled at the clinics because those are free/inexpensive too. So emergency rooms tend to have less traffic as people don't wait as long for care. Earlier intervention = better health outcomes.

The regular clinics had very short wait times. You could get a routine appointment within a few days. The clinic was busy but you weren't waiting for 2-3 hours for a regular appointment. (Maybe 15 minutes).

"Pedo Daddy told me to hate Canada so now I hate Canada."

I saw an analysis about this a few years ago where they showed that the wait time for care in Canada was generally less than the wait time in America for most stuff.

Certain things like non-emergency (but important) surgeries could take longer to schedule in Canada.

But that was years ago. Probably both sides have had changes since then.

The most important takeaway is that if you think wait times would definitely be worse with socialized medicine, you have fallen for conservative propaganda, you idiot.

I remember when they sent me to an hospital from the clinic because it was possible I had something really concerning. I passed in front of everyone. It took 1 minute the second I talked to the reception. When they figured out it wasn't lethal, it took some time... you know... to take care of the dying people.

In the US, if the wait time is ever quicker it’s because a lot of people who SHOULD be there just died at home or at least tried to tough it out and will live with those consequences for the rest of their lives.

And yea, conservatives(lowercase, to not exuse anyone not in the Conservative party) are constantly fucking over our public instiutions. That includes healthcare, and frankly those politicians doing the damage are just murderers for hire. We have to do better, but at least we aren’t the US.

The only reason that American ERs may get you in faster is because it is so fucking cost prohibitive that the only people there are either at serious risk of life or limb, or have chronic conditions and they are going to hit their out of pocket max anyway. The people that should be going to the ER but don't feel like they absolutely have to, aren't.

And every ER in the US and Canada both prioritize people by need. You triage life threatening issues first. Then serious injuries. Then things that may have deeper issues. Then things you can treat now. Then things that you are just wanting to get checked out. Then things that you should have just gone to your primary care for. If you are waiting for 12 hours in either case, you definitely didn't come for life saving care or serious injury. You might have to wait a while for an x-ray, cat scan or mri because those are always a bottleneck in every hospital.

If people were dying in Canadian ERs waiting for care, or getting chronic conditions due to delayed treatment, I would be concerned, but that is never the claim. It is always just about your precious time away from work. But how many hours is too many hours when you are recieving FREE care compared to a bill high enough to buy a new fucking car every year? Perspective, people.

Waiting for 12 hours is worth it, if in return everybody receives the medical care they need!

I went to the ER with heart problems in the US. Waited 12 hours in a mostly empty waiting room.

I never understood the argument about waiting for ED/ER care in socialized medicine vs the US’s.

Everyone is triaged, everyone waits in the ER. The sprained ankle or sniffle goes last, the stroke is seen immediately. Every country’s medical system has medical mistakes.

Like the meme says, the US will bankrupt you for care - and in no small part because people will put off care until a condition is potentially serious because they can’t afford to take time off for it or the cost of the care itself.

UK here.

If you're waiting 12 hours in a&e, your condition almost certainly is not life threatening. Sprained arm, or a bad cold? You're potentially waiting a while. Head injury, or heart issues? You're not touching a waiting room seat.

The NHS can be slow as sin for non-acute issues. It took almost a year to get a benign, but disruptive lump removed. Major complications while giving birth? Instant, full blown, treatment.

We still have some private medicine. The existence of the NHS keeps their prices and practices in check. It's no longer "pay or die" instead its "pay for convenience".

In America, I pay for health insurance that I can't use because I can't find a fucking doctor! Seriously, I've been trying to get a PCP for years but everyone I call is not taking patients. I'm on several different waiting lists.

You can tell these people have never visited an ER in the US when they post shit you could tell was a lie just by accidentally glancing into any hospital window.

If it's so bad in Canada, and so great here, why is nobody in Canada demanding to switch to that great American last place healthcare?