Uh-huh.

Last time I had to use the hospital (bike accident) I was seen and treated within minutes, including getting a CAT scan.

See if that happens in Canada or other countries with socialized medicine!

The last two times I went to the emergency room, I got initial treatment immediately (IV hydration and an anti-histamine shot). Then they put me under observation to see that I was okay, and discharged me after a couple of hours.

At the risk of spoiling your uninformed opinion with some ugly facts, see this.

U.S. patients reported relatively longer waiting times for doctor appointments when they were sick, but relatively shorter waiting times to be seen at the ER, see a specialist, and have elective surgery. Specifically:

- The percentage of U.S. patients who waited six days or more for a doctor appointment when sick was not significantly different from the rate in Canada (23% v. 36%), the worst-performing country.

- Only 47 percent of U.S. patients were able to see a doctor on the same or next day when sick, versus 61 percent to 81 percent of patients in the four better-performing nations.

- U.S. patients were less likely than patients in Canada (12% v. 24%) but more likely than patients in Germany (4%) to wait four hours or more to be seen in the emergency department.

- U.S. patients were less likely than patients in four countries (except Germany) to wait four weeks or longer to see a specialist (23% v. 40%–60%) or to wait four months or longer for elective surgery (8% v. 19%–41%) (Schoen et al. 2005)

Correct.

In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678 – in the U.S. it was US$6,714.

So the question might be – is it better to pay $3,600 in taxes for better results, or $6,700 for worse results? And please recall that health care costs in the US are rising way faster than GDP growth.

And if I have to go to the ER, I will have a moderate co-payment (I think mine is $50 for the ER) but I won’t face “a hefty bill.”

Assumign your insurance company pays. You may have missed the bit in the article where she already had insurance, but the company said that bleeding from the nipple wasn’t sufficiently “urgent”.

Dana, are the wait times you reference for elective surgery only? If so, I would have no problem with it.

The definition used by the Fraser Institure:

Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed

Such would include both elective and non-elective treatment.

Then again, how would you define elective? Miss Woodkey’s condition was not life-threatening, and she could have lived with it, and did live with it for more than a year. Yes, she was in chronic pain, but the fact she was able to live with it for a year means that it could be defined as elective.

Dana, your experiences are anecdotal.

Possibly, but I suspect they’re typical. Long waits don’t seem to be the problem here that you hear about in other countries. Last time I had to use the hospital (bike accident) I was seen and treated within minutes, including getting a CAT scan.

See if that happens in Canada or other countries with socialized medicine!