Current Events > Controversial Take: Healthcare should have a cost to it, and not be free.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Literally doesnt work. See Canada and UK; their healthcare system is falling apart with months of wait time before being able to see a specialist.

Literally doesnt work. See Canada and UK; their healthcare system is falling apart with months of wait time before being able to see a specialist.

Literally doesnt work. See Canada and UK; their healthcare system is falling apart with months of wait time before being able to see a specialist.

Well, we do say this in regards to the level of care.
We tell people to think twice about what level of healthcare to use, in regards to primary care physician, emergency room, urgent care, etc.

Is that essentially all that TC is saying?

You realize that's also happening here in the US too right? To see a specialist you have to wait months. When I wanted to go to a cardiologist I had to wait months for an appointment and I ended up going to the ER and telling them I thought I was having a heart attack instead to get checked.

Your name really is fucking apt.

News flash: You have to wait for months to see a specialist in the US too.

Single-payer healthcare works well in many countries.The US pays far more for health care per capita than any other country, but doesn't receive quality of care representative of that cost.

We don't wait months. Sometimes we wait years.

And? The US doesn't have to copy Canada's health care system. Single-payer works very well in enough countries that the US can easily find a better country to model it after.

The biggest problem with it in Canada is the fact that every province runs it differently.

Wait times have such a wide range of differences because some provinces pay and support their health system really well, while others (like where I'm in, Saskatchwan) are run by redneck morons who don't fund health properly.

While my wife was alive she needed a geneticist. There wasn't one in Saskatchewan because they didn't want to pay the going rate for one. We had to go to Calgary to get a specialist. =/

Not to agree with the OP but its not even close to the same. I waited 16 hours with a broken foot only to not be seen here in Canada, all because our health care system can't afford to pay for a second doctor for overnights. Meanwhile my cousin can walk into any doctors office in the States with his insurance plan, and not only get seen, but get set up for an X-Ray that same day, when I could be waiting over a month. If I didn't have my own family care doctor, I'd be screwed. And by the by, family care doctors are extremely rare where I live. I was lucky when my family care doctor retired that all his patients got moved to the replacing doctor.

I've known people to be put on a waiting list for over a year for an extremely important surgery, only for it to be cancelled without their consent because the surgeon decided to take a holiday, and that's the only surgeon in the province that can perform that one surgery.

I'm not saying the States doesn't have issues, you guys most certainly do. You pay way too much for basic quality of life medicare, but at the same time, all our nurses, doctors and surgeons are moving there because the pay is vastly more than here.

Username checks out.

I'd take months of wait time to see a specialist over not getting to see a specialist at all.

My cousin got pushed down stairs by his wife and had a possible fracture in his skull and had to wait 3 days to get an X-Ray while he was waiting in the ER. I also needed an X-Ray for a potential surgery and had to wait 2 months to get it. So no, you can't get an X-Ray the same day everywhere in the US. I live in NYC btw. My mom has to wait an entire year to get cataract surgery.

All of that stuff you said happens here too. You just don't hear about it as often because it seems like the media wants to frame the US as this amazing bastion of healthcare while Canada and other places are hellholes.

fair enough, that I didn't know. Guess our areas all suck.

At least you won't go into life crippling debt and get all of your worldly possessions taken from you for trying to take care of your health. The US healthcare system is only better if you're rich.

Anything provided for "free" is usually abused. You want some sort of incentive for people to use resources wisely and not be calling an ambulance because they stubbed their tow.

No, but that doesn't matter if your dead. I'm not joking here. People say "Oh its not so bad if I have to wait a bit". It isn't always good to wait. I've known family members who had to wait to get seen, only for their issues to go from a 3 to an 8 all because the wait times are horrendous.

Ergo, why both our countries are screwed.

Anything provided for "free" is usually abused. You want some sort of incentive for people to use resources wisely and not be calling an ambulance because they stubbed their toe.

This is exactly my point. The US healthcare system sucks right now. However, I dont want everything to be free, because itll be ripe for abuse.

True, but you're not able to go to the ER for things like chemo or dialysis or anything, are you? That's outpatient stuff.

The ER will get you to a point where they can street you and put a referral to a specialist you'll never be able to afford in your hands, and the only other treatment you get is when you go back to the ER when you die from the thing for-profit health care kept you from treating when it was treatable.

Normal people aren't using the ER as a clinic and running up bills on the taxpayer dime because they know they're on the hook for it first. And medical billing and collections will find you.

As I said above, prove to me that it will be abused to such an extent that it will be a significant detriment to society. None of this half-baked assumptions, not anecdotes. Actual, real, reputably sourced studies that show that universal health care, when properly funded via taxes and used for the benefit of all members of the population, will be abused to the point of non-function. Not with the Tories or other conservative parties deliberately sabotaging it to prove that it doesnt work, not based on studies funded by think-tanks in the pockets of the insurance companies deliberately skewing the data. Actual, real proof.

And Ill bet you cant provide that proof, because it doesnt exist.

Your opinion that all people are shitty and looking to take advantage of a system does not justify robbing the majority of good, hardworking people a service that will benefit everyone. Yes, some people absolutely will abuse the system. But you are doing more harm by championing a system that has and continues to fail us than those people ever will bilking the system.

Heres a hint: Life is a lot better when youre not a corporate bootlicker.

Prove to me it doesnt.

Prove to me it doesnt.

Literally doesnt work. See Canada and UK; their healthcare system is falling apart with months of wait time before being able to see a specialist.

Username checks out.

I'm curious, do you think there's no wait times in the USA for medical care?

As someone who works in an ER I can assure there are plenty of people who treat it like a clinic. They will come in for the most mundane, non emergent issues

Prove to me it doesnt.

I'm curious, do you think there's no wait times in the USA for medical care?

Not that Ive seen ever since I got out of NYC. I come to my doctors appointment at 4pm, Im seen at 4pm. Its amazing. I needed an ultrasound with some specialty elastic measuring or something that had to be done at the hospital and not at an outpatient center, and I got an appointment offered the same day (though I wanted one later). My daughter needed tongue tie surgery, and she got one scheduled the day of discharge from the hospital after birth (day 3 of her life).

Not that Ive seen ever since I got out of NYC. I come to my doctors appointment at 4pm, Im seen at 4pm. Its amazing. I needed an ultrasound with some specialty elastic measuring or something that had to be done at the hospital and not at an outpatient center, and I got an appointment offered the same day (though I wanted one later). My daughter needed tongue tie surgery, and she got one scheduled the day of discharge from the hospital after birth (day 3 of her life).

Well that just proves everything! Your anecdotal evidence absolutely trumps everything every single study, even those sponsored by conservative political groups, that moving to universal health care will save money and not be a detriment to our medical services.

Let me guess, your logic was NYC is filled with Democrats, so my healthcare problems are their fault! as opposed to Our national system of insurance is screwing over everyone because of chasing shareholder profits, just be because you moved to someplace that wasnt as strained.

Prove to me it doesnt.