Universal Healthcare vs Insurance question

[Broomstick]

As far as I was aware, the biggest waiting lists were for non-critical things like knee and hip replacements. Other things (such as sacral nerve stimulators for incontinence, which require the situation to be unresponsive to less invasive treatment for at least a year before the patient becomes eligible) require "waiting", but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you're an American used to instant service.

I was actually thinking in terms of quality of medicine. Usually, if a problem can be fixed with minimal invasion, then that's minimal invasion is the way to go. Of course, you're right that it may not be solved instantly, but it has less chance of complications. I imagine that most people don't know enough about medicine to realise that, though. I know, but that's just because my family is full of cynical doctors. Who are friends with even more cynical docters.

Exactly. All too many people equate aggressive/invasive medicine with better medicine when really the opposite is true.

[Darth Wong]

Here's a question for all those right-wingers who think that "wait lines" are some sort of silver bullet to slay the socialized health-care demon:

What's worse? A waiting line or a door slammed in your face?

Because "a door slammed in your face" is what the US system currently does to 40 million people, and even many people who think they're covered.

I just want to say, Mike, that you have a far better grasp of the situation than the vast majority of Americans.

Thanks, but I think that's partially a side-effect of being a citizen of a small country that, by necessity, has to be aware of events outside our own borders (although I'm a member of the "politically aware" class even by Canadian standards).

Far too many Americans have literally no idea how the world functions outside of their own borders, except for areas they're currently at war with.

[Broomstick]

I think it's also partly a matter of being outside the problem, too. A lot of Americans are so afraid of losing access that they're afraid of any change in the system, even beneficial ones.

I do know I sleep a lot better now that we have coverage again. I just hope we can keep it.

[Darth Wong]

I think it's also partly a matter of being outside the problem, too. A lot of Americans are so afraid of losing access that they're afraid of any change in the system, even beneficial ones.

I think the cultural problem runs deeper than that. A lot of Americans have a downright cartoonish idea of what "socialized" means. They literally seem to have cobbled together their understanding of socialism from old 1950s propaganda reels about the Red Menace.

In a society which has built much of its national self-image and ego as being the Slayers of Communism (which they assume to be the same as socialism), there is a deeply entrenched tendency not to learn anything more once you hear the word "socialized". So you hear people spouting preposterous lies about how socialized health-care systems work. It's not just that they're afraid of change, but that they have silly childish notions of what effect these changes would have. And on a deeper level, they feel that their opposition to socialized medicine is some kind of righteous moral crusade.

I do know I sleep a lot better now that we have coverage again. I just hope we can keep it.

Good luck.