Actually, Romneycare has increased patient wait times to 1.5 months.

[ShawnD1]

If he had gone straight to a specialist for this, it is likely. If he had gone to a GP or ED initially, I call shens.

Actually it does sound about right. Some of the most basic shit in Canada takes a brutally long time. If they would allow private clinics to operate on the side, it would take care of the waiting list problem.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html

(from 2007)
The median wait for a CT scan across Canada was 4.8 weeks
The median wait for an MRI across Canada was 10.1 weeks

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Actually it does sound about right. Some of the most basic shit in Canada takes a brutally long time. If they would allow private clinics to operate on the side, it would take care of the waiting list problem.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html

Crap, 10.8 weeks for an MRI? I had to rush to the imaging facility after my doc appointment so I wouldn't miss it. Took maybe 30 minutes to get there. Had another one at a later date and told them just to make it for the afternoon.

The problem with the American healthcare system is that people who have no clue are trying to run and fix it. Our government rushed to make up a few thousand pages and no one knows what it means in the long term. There are things which we could do, but everyone seems to have stayed in some huge Holiday Inn Express or something.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Actually it does sound about right. Some of the most basic shit in Canada takes a brutally long time. If they would allow private clinics to operate on the side, it would take care of the waiting list problem.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html

Might want to find some recent stats. Also, as said repeatedly, urgent critical medical assessments take priority.

Currently, there is neither a consensus on benchmarks for diagnostic imaging nor universal collection of information on MRI and CT wait times, but imaging wait-time data from six provinces are contained in the 2011 report. The average wait time for CT scans ranges from seven days in Ontario to 22 days in Saskatchewan. The average wait time for MRI exams ranges from 31 days in Saskatchewan to 77 days in Prince Edward Island.

 

[ShawnD1]

Crap, 10.8 weeks for an MRI? I had to rush to the imaging facility after my doc appointment so I wouldn't miss it. Took maybe 30 minutes to get there. Had another one at a later date and told them just to make it for the afternoon.

It's caused by a lack of funding allocated to do the procedure rather than a lack of actual resources. The machines are idle much of the time; nobody using them. The Worker's Compensation Board is somehow allowed to pay for procedures, and they can book you for an MRI the next day after you've filed a claim that you were injured at work. It's messed up.

If a private clinic were allowed to setup shop and run an MRI 24/7, they would make tons of money and it would drastically shorten the wait to use the government funded stuff. I really don't understand why anyone fights against two tiered healthcare. Instead of letting rich people pay for stuff they want done, those rich people take up valuable spots in the queue and poor people need to wait longer. So to sum it up:
-rich people get longer wait times
-middle class people get longer wait times
-poor people get longer wait times


It's great that there is free healthcare, but that doesn't mean all for-profit care should be outlawed. It would be on the same level of retarded as outlawing private courier services and saying you must use the government's mail system. Why?? Why can't we have multiple service providers?!?

 

[fskimospy]

It's caused by a lack of funding allocated to do the procedure rather than a lack of actual resources. The machines are idle much of the time; nobody using them. The Worker's Compensation Board is somehow allowed to pay for procedures, and they can book you for an MRI the next day after you've filed a claim that you were injured at work. It's messed up.

If a private clinic were allowed to setup shop and run an MRI 24/7, they would make tons of money and it would drastically shorten the wait to use the government funded stuff. I really don't understand why anyone fights against two tiered healthcare. Instead of letting rich people pay for stuff they want done, those rich people take up valuable spots in the queue and poor people need to wait longer. So to sum it up:
-rich people get longer wait times
-middle class people get longer wait times
-poor people get longer wait times


It's great that there is free healthcare, but that doesn't mean all for-profit care should be outlawed. It would be on the same level of retarded as outlawing private courier services and saying you must use the government's mail system. Why?? Why can't we have multiple service providers?!?

I agree! That's the way most industrialized countries do it, Canada is definitely an outlier in that respect. I don't see why we don't do the rational thing and implement universal socialized health care at a certain minimum level and then have a private insurance industry on top of it.

 

[ShawnD1]

Might want to find some recent stats. Also, as said repeatedly, urgent critical medical assessments take priority.

http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/news/story.html?id=4133208

January 19, 2011
9,000 extra MRIs to reduce backlog in Alberta
........

Even so, the province can't keep up with an ever-rising demand for the test, which can cost between $300 and $500. Though Alberta Health Services has increased the numbers of MRIs it performs by about 10,000 each year for the last three, wait lists and times remain a problem. Emergency cases and hospital patients can typically get an MRI in 24 to 48 hours, but there are currently 449 top-priority out-patients waiting across Alberta for an MRI. Those people may have cancer and should have the diagnostic image done within one week. In Edmonton, they're waiting two weeks and in Calgary, eight weeks.

Priority 3 patients - those with knee or shoulder injuries, or people with multiple sclerosis needing a followup to track disease progression - should have the test done within 90 days. Currently, 22,000 such patients are on the wait list. And while Edmontonians are waiting an average of 70 days (10 weeks), Calgarians are waiting up to 238 days (34 weeks), or more than double the provincial target.

So if you're a top priority who may have cancer or something, you wait 2 weeks in Edmonton and 8 weeks in Calgary. If you have some shoulder problem or something, ha, sorry bro. We'll try to book you in some time before 2013


You'll notice that the article mentioned private clinics having some of these machines. That's true. Much of the healthcare in Canada really is provided by private clinics, and it's funded through government insurance. The problem is that the government puts limits on how much money can go into these things. This is to prevent doctors from fucking around and saying every single person should have an MRI for every single problem (that's what happens when any project is over-funded). I understand the government trying to limit the amount of bullshit tests that are done, but at the same time they don't allow us to throw down our own money or buy private insurance to pay for some of this. If I want to have my shoulder MRI scanned right now, I'm not allowed to pay for it out of pocket and get it done right now. I need to wait in the government queue because only the government is allowed to pay for it. It just doesn't make any sense.

I agree! That's the way most industrialized countries do it, Canada is definitely an outlier in that respect. I don't see why we don't do the rational thing and implement universal socialized health care at a certain minimum level and then have a private insurance industry on top of it.

Hopefully Americans can learn from the mistakes of others. They look across the border and see Canada has huge wait times for some basic things, and they know exactly why that is. When USA finally gets socialized medicine for everyone, they should look into some kind of two tier system like Australia. It's actually a bit like the mail system. If you want to send cheap mail with a bit of a wait, you can send it through the government postal service for less than a dollar. If you want it there immediately, you can pay $20 and it gets there in less than a day. Neither system by itself is perfect, but having both at the same time covers all bases.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

It's caused by a lack of funding allocated to do the procedure rather than a lack of actual resources. The machines are idle much of the time; nobody using them. The Worker's Compensation Board is somehow allowed to pay for procedures, and they can book you for an MRI the next day after you've filed a claim that you were injured at work. It's messed up.

If a private clinic were allowed to setup shop and run an MRI 24/7, they would make tons of money and it would drastically shorten the wait to use the government funded stuff. I really don't understand why anyone fights against two tiered healthcare. Instead of letting rich people pay for stuff they want done, those rich people take up valuable spots in the queue and poor people need to wait longer. So to sum it up:
-rich people get longer wait times
-middle class people get longer wait times
-poor people get longer wait times


It's great that there is free healthcare, but that doesn't mean all for-profit care should be outlawed. It would be on the same level of retarded as outlawing private courier services and saying you must use the government's mail system. Why?? Why can't we have multiple service providers?!?

Again not factually accurate. There are several private medical imaging facilities in Canada as well as many other services.

http://www.findprivateclinics.ca/

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Good God, does Canada have one just MRI machine for the whole country?! I know they're expensive and all, but...

 

[ShawnD1]

Again not factually accurate. There are several private medical imaging facilities in Canada as well as many other services.

http://www.findprivateclinics.ca/

Privately owned but publicly funded. Almost all family doctors and medical test facilities in Alberta fall into that category.

You are not allowed to pay cash out of pocket and have tests done right away. If that were the case, there wouldn't be any kind of MRI crisis in Canada. Do you think that those 22,000 people in Alberta alone who are waiting for up to 10 weeks to get an MRI are all dirt poor and they simply can't afford the $500 test? No, they wait in line because they are not allowed to pay the $500.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Privately owned but publicly funded. Almost all family doctors and medical test facilities in Alberta fall into that category.

You are not allowed to pay cash out of pocket and have tests done right away. If that were the case, there wouldn't be any kind of MRI crisis in Canada. Do you think that those 22,000 people in Alberta alone who are waiting for up to 10 weeks to get an MRI are all dirt poor and they simply can't afford the $500 test? No, they wait in line because they are not allowed to pay the $500.

These are for profit services. You may be able to apply thru OHIP for some cost recovery or claim the medical expense on your taxes but it's out of pocket.

http://www.stjosephmri.com/index.php?page=price_list.html


This one even does financing.

Edit: since I'm derailing the thread from Romneycare itself this will be my last semi-off topic post here.

 

[PokerGuy]

A pretty typical appeal for someone who can't actually back up their argument with facts.

Oh? Incredibly long wait times for MRI's, CT scans, joint replacements, "elective" surgeries, evaluation by specialists are not factual enough for you? Those are FACTS. Pure and simple. Just because their impact is not as easily measured doesn't mean they aren't important measures. The problem is your liberal ideology forces you to dismiss them as not important because they don't fit the "socialized medicine is great!" mantra.

You're basically saying that because there are certain aspects of health care systems that are difficult to empirically measure that we can't draw any conclusions from the huge parts of the medical system that we CAN empirically measure.

No, I'm saying there are more measures than the ones you choose to look at. There are good parts and bad parts to every system. You keep citing lower costs from other systems as a clear indicator we should be following their systems, but fail to recognize that there are also significant problems and downsides with those same systems that we want to avoid.

Admit it, if the results were turned around and these numbers applied to a private system you would be singing its praises.

There is good and bad to every system. For Canada, it appears the good is lower overall health expenditures, the bad is long wait times, lack of access to specialists etc. So it's not a simple "hey, their system is clearly better, we need to do the same thing!", it's more "hey, there are aspects of their system that we could learn from, and others that we want to avoid."

There's a reason why every other industrialized nation on earth has at least some form of a socialized system.

I don't care what they have or don't have, that's completely irrelevant, and again makes the assumption that the US is identical to those countries in culture, legal system, demographics, habits, medical care and that the same system can be implemented here with better results.

 

[PokerGuy]

If he had gone straight to a specialist for this, it is likely. If he had gone to a GP or ED initially, I call shens.

He saw his GP in NZ, but then went to CA to stay with his son. His GP had referred him to a specialist and it was going to take 6 weeks to even see the specialist in CA. I personally helped make the arrangements for him to be seen by the specialist in the US (which took all of 5 days by the way). Call shens all you like, it's a fact.

 

[PokerGuy]

Might want to find some recent stats. Also, as said repeatedly, urgent critical medical assessments take priority.

The average wait time for MRI exams ranges from 31 days in Saskatchewan to 77 days in Prince Edward Island.

Note that those figures include "urgent" use as well as "regular" use. As such, if you have something that doesn't require "urgent" use of an MRI (like say, a painful back, shoulder, knee, hip), you're going to be waiting even longer.

I'd love to see the average wait times for CT, MRI etc in the US for "non emergency" cases versus Canada. I'd be willing to bet there's a huge difference between the two.

That shouldn't matter to you though, elitist liberals like eskimo have decided that it's not important and you should not care.