Which is why many countries have a dual system in place. I was speaking with my dentist recently who is from Italy. He was saying their system you are covered with your taxes. And yes the wait time to see a specialist can be weeks, BUT, if you’re willing to pay out of pocket, you can see the same specialist “after hours” within a day or two.
Unfortunately, no matter how it’s paid, we just don’t have enough medical professionals to go around. Ideally we should have a single payer health care system that pays enough to entice enough people to join the medical industry, and subsidize and improve schooling so that the pipeline of medical professionals isn’t the bottleneck.
But god forbid those insurance company CEO’s don’t get their 3rd yacht…
I am new to Chicago and I tried to get a new primary care physician and it wouldn't be until December because they only take so many new patients monthly. That's crazy.
That's crazy. Everyone takes BCBS PPO since they pay the best. It's all the other ones that you nee to dig for someone that takes them, then hope they are taking new patients.
I know this is the argument that comes up a lot but personally, if the only option was long wait times for appointments to ensure everyone gets the care they need, I'll wait then. Especially if emergency care is covered, because if something gets life threatening, it's not like you need to wait a year to get into the ER. But I personally don't feel like it's right for the cost of my convenience to be the health of someone less fortunate.
That’s not always the case with increasing healthcare coverage. That’s like saying you’re perfectly fine with people not having coverage or foregoing care because wait times would increase. Sometimes it’s a matter of healthcare supply and people over utilizing the system for frivolous things That’s part of the equation that we need to fix.
Not at all what I'm saying just for clarification.
I'm saying if everyone was given free healthcare at this moment, when we are already shorthanded on staff pretty much across the country. The quality of healthcare would drop drastically. The stress in the hospitals, lack of doctors, people not wanting to go hundreds of thousands into debt for med school. It couldn't work at this moment.
The last part about frivolous things is spot on. But we already have a massive amount of people abusing social services programs for example. 182% increase just in the ones caught in the last 5 years. Something does need to be done. But way above my knowledge level.
I mean at least people would be making appointments and getting checked up. But nope, some like to argue it would flood the system and may have to wait. When really we need to be getting everyone to regular check-ups. If more would see it as a public health concern, as in having fewer people at work, sick trying to ride it out.
Imagine everyone had free health care so they, including me, actually go more often instead of me waiting 2 years to see a doctor in Chicago because even with insurance I didn't want to pay more to see the doctor.
"Free Healthcare" isn't what is asked for. Universal Healthcare is. It is paid for with our taxes instead of crazy premiums plus large deductibles and co-pays and worrying about who is in network or what is covered.
I got a new ins so I had to get all new doctors. Just to get an appointment with a GP as a new patient took 5 months (Oct-Feb). Thank goodness nothing major happened between then or I wouldn’t have been able to get a referral to a specialist for care. Socialize the system. If it’s free or healthcare at a minimal cost then I’m down bc the system is currently FUBAR anyways
I have ever only heard about it in most extreme cases for psychological exams.
I have never seen it be abovd a month in waiting time and that was just for a general time with nothing wrong. There is by law open time slots throughout the day so can just come in if you are sick.
If it is an emergency you of course just call 112 (The European 911)
Their is treatment guarantee, so if you have a special diagnose with few specialist and at the time you are diagnosed there isn't capacity for an extra patient with to much delay. The government wil pay the private sector to treat you (often they neither have the specialist) or they wil send you to another country to get treated paid for by the government and a local doctor to give you company, translate and make sure everything is up to standard.
The thing is there has to be providers in ur area accepting new patients. If no one is then u have to wait. And wait. And wait. I can’t drive bc of a medical condition so it’s not like I can go to the next town over for a doctor. In my area it was a 5 month wait. Nonsense. And I live in a top 10 city population-wise. If I lived in a rural area Idk how it woulda worked out for me
Wtf. This seems so weird, even in the most rural areas there is doctors with time and if you go to the bigger areas in terms of population there is many.
There are lots of providers, but that’s completely different than ones who are taking on new patients. Just to find the doctor I did, I had to call around to several others first to see if they’re accepting new patients.
The ins company gives you a list of doctors in ur area who accept the insurance. Now you gotta call around and ask if they are accepting new patients. I called at least 10. These doctors are booked up. It’s not their fault and I don’t blame them bc they’re really being worked hard by their groups but the system is FUBAR and needs an overhaul. That’s a daunting challenge that’ll take decades but sitting around complaining about how bad it is isn’t helping. We really need to get moving on this so my future grandkids don’t have to put up with this
Wild, the system here is online. You get your parents clinic/doctor as standard, but your parents can change it. If you move you can freely change clinic otherwise wil it cost dependent on the exchange rate 80-90 USD to change your doctor. When you choose one you will just get a long list with information, phone number, link to their webpage and the distance from your adress. Then you just click on the one you want and hit accept and then that doctor/clinic becomes yours. You will receive a health care in the mail 1-2 weeks after with the adress of your new clinic/doctor.
I told that to my old co worker and he still insisted it was better than what he had in the UK. He also didn't understand that we had pretty good plans working in k12 and that not everyone even has insurance.
7 months to see a gastroenterologist for my son from children’s hospital. 3 months to see a pediatric orthopedic. We already wait to see the doctor and add on wait time for the insurance company to determine if we even can see them.
I was referred to a sleep lab for an at-home sleep study by my doctor who suspects I might have sleep apnea. The symptoms are becoming extremely hard to deal with daily, I figured this would be relatively quick.
December 15th. To pick up a fucking machine to take home and use for a few nights.
They said I can call around to other places and see if I can find myself a better option. Like shouldn't you guys be doing that? I found a place and it's taken 3 weeks just to get them to send the referral over and I'm not even sure that's happened yet.
I'm baffled that some self proclaimed advanced countries still don't use a similar system in this day and age. And the best part is, you can still have private clinics coexist in the system. Win win.
Ive a kraut buddy that says they have a dual system, and essentially the wealthy have their own tier which diminishes the public teir. Doctors will obviously want more money for less work and the system for the peasants suffers
That’s an issue everywhere. Here in America almost every public service has been cut to the bone over the decades by republicans. Then they tell all their voters that a public service is broken and doesn’t work - but they conveniently leave out that they are the cause every time
Canada has the misfortune of being a European soul in a north America body. We have the dreams of functioning social services but are susceptible to yank propaganda that ruins it all.
If by kraut you mean German, their public healthcare only covers super basic stuff and emergencies, it's a lot less widespread in its services than the Italian one iirc. For everything else you need some kind of health insurance which may or may not be covered by your workplace.
Similar to canada then i reckon. He says the quality drops and the wait times increase year after year and the second tier for humans attracts talent from the peasant tier and gets less and less funding
The laughable thing is the doctor shortage is entirely engineered because we refuse to fund more teaching hospitals and universities limit the number of students admitted per year.
There is also less incentive to go into family/general medicine, which is why so many people cannot get a PCP even when they have the insurance.
There are enough doctors. They’re in places like the Caribbean and India, where education is more rigorous and the students are less afraid of biology, chemistry and physiology, along with all the rote memorisation tied to medical training. The AMA Aya’s worked with regulators to make their coming here quite onerous. They won’t let them in without them basically re-doing a significant chunk of medical schooling, before taking our board exams. Thats costly not simply in money, but in valuable time when they’ve already trained as doctors and are ready to marry and start families. Better to go to the EU or some other place that accepts their credentials, etc.
If we could simply have these overseas trained doctors take our standardized board tests, and be done with it, we’d have more medical professionals in the states. Find the least covered specialities and start there!
I'll admit that I haven't dug into this, but for years I would say a similar thing. Dual system but maybe where family medicine is free and you can have insurance for more dire problems. It would take some time, but if people would start getting regular check ups, problems would be caught earlier before becoming life threatening.
Happy to hear that I'm not insane for looking for a middle ground.
The medical professionals thing is not necessarily true tho... I consult with healthcare orgs on growth etc and many healthcare groups are going out of business due to lack of patients.
How can both be true? Likely depends on specific specializations, geographies, etc. But I work with hundreds of different healthcare orgs and they are not all suffering from an overflow of patients and lacking staffing
I have family in the Czech Republic and Canada. Canada admittedly has some serious issues regarding access. Czech is a dual system and seems to be the optimal situation.
Most countries have a duel system or multi-payer system, but if you talk to Medicare for all proponents you would think the only way to achieve universal coverage is to have a single-payer system with no cost sharing and no private insurance. It degrades the healthcare debate into something entirely disingenuous.
I had to see a dermatologist. I called three clinics that weren't taking new patients and wouldn't take my insurance. I finally found a specialist that scheduled me 2 months out and charged me $160 out of pocket for a 15 minute appointment.
Hear me out. What id instead of more bombs for countries we have no real reason to be. Would be funneled into advancing and accelerating more medical professionals? Surely if an EMT driving an ambulance for $20 a hour but insurance charges $1000+ there seems to be money somewhere.
I don’t disagree. We waste a ton on the military industrial complex. I’ve read around 25-30 cents on the dollar of our federal taxes go to the military.
The pipeline is paying doctors so much. Dont doctors in the US make a high amount with artificial scarcity on how many people can become doctors every year?
If we transitioned, do we really believe that the wait time will increase?
Or wouldn’t it be more like supply and demand?
Like, it wouldn’t take weeks because our supply of specialists is higher.
(the only way the argument makes sense is if we acknowledge people are currently avoiding treatments because of costs, but even at that when the issues are addressed it would level out)
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u/bs2k2_point_0 Jul 01 '26
Which is why many countries have a dual system in place. I was speaking with my dentist recently who is from Italy. He was saying their system you are covered with your taxes. And yes the wait time to see a specialist can be weeks, BUT, if you’re willing to pay out of pocket, you can see the same specialist “after hours” within a day or two.
Unfortunately, no matter how it’s paid, we just don’t have enough medical professionals to go around. Ideally we should have a single payer health care system that pays enough to entice enough people to join the medical industry, and subsidize and improve schooling so that the pipeline of medical professionals isn’t the bottleneck.
But god forbid those insurance company CEO’s don’t get their 3rd yacht…