I’m fully insured and have always been well taken care of in the United States health care system. Never wait more than 30 minutes if I were in an emergency room, and usually I’m attended to within 10-15. Doctors appointments are easy to get, never paid much for prescriptions.
If I was in a public system, I’d fear I’d be fighting for attention alongside the general public, so I’m not convinced it would be better.
Don't you think it's a worthy goal to strive for this for all people in your country? Would you really try to block progress towards that goal due to your fear of being treated as they are right now, instead of putting your energy towards nobody being treated that way?
Sincerely, if anyone can explain to me - how can we as a species both have figured out game theory, AND consider this as a position that is in any way acceptable?
The current situation is that the parent poster has preferential healthcare access, and other people that they do not care about do not. The alternative is equal treatment which might mean the same access, or worse access as they are forced to "fight for attention alongside the general public" as they so blithely put it.
Given the option between the status quo, or a change which can only ever be the same or worse for you personally (regardless of the broader impact), of course someone self-centered would choose the former.
The best insurance I've seen in the US is Medicaid.
It's people in the middle who are getting squeezed by HDHPs, mostly not the poor, who have access to Medicaid (exact qualifications vary by state) or Medicare (everyone 65+).
I'm fully insured and healthy but still just paid almost $3000 in deductubles for a single upper endoscopy (common procedure for 40+ folks). Cigna. In Italy last summer I received a dental xray and diagnosis as a walk-in, for FREE.
Just adding that in Lombardy, the region around Milan who have a bad case of parochial wanna-be NYC, local (right wing) government is pushing towards private health care with lavish subsidies for privates and a grossly underfunded public health system. To get an MRI via public you can wait 1k days, invia private is a next-day appointment although you must be ready to pay thousands EUR. frankly it’s obviously deliberate
That's disappointing to hear. My experience was in Brescia. I'm from NYC so I can say that if they're charging thousands of euro for a scan they're right on the money.
Where is the wait only 30 minutes? Every time I've been to the emergency room the wait has been 6+ hours. I think the only way it would be that fast at the hospitals I've been to is if you'd die waiting longer, otherwise it's a long wait.
Everywhere and nowhere it can be 30 minutes. Every competent ER on the planet triages patients. Come in with crushing chest pains and it should be 30 minutes everywhere 99% of the time. Broken arm? You might wait hours if people keep coming in with crushing chest pains.
"Wait" can be defined very differently. Wait time to get triaged by a nurse? An ECG for chest pains? Initial physician assessment? Entry-to-exit? Lab results? Time to X-Ray if needed?
Lots of directives may be in place too. In an efficient system, the nurse is empowered to "order" many procedures that screen out serious things that require immediate physician intervention. Or just to save time like ordering an X-Ray first instead of waiting to see a doctor to order it and then waiting again for it to come back to review.
I've waited less than an hour in New Jersey and Connecticut.
When I still lived in NYC, I resolved that if I needed a hospital but I wasn't in extremely bad shape, I would drive an hour into an adjacent state's ER rather than wait in NYC.
Post COVID hospital in Ohio, limped in with severe ankle sprain, got doctor in less than 15 minutes and out within an hour with splint and crutches. Even got X-Ray.
What city? Most of us in this thread live in larger cities. When I lived in LA and had to go to the ER, the wait was 5 hours and they literally rolled a cart over and made me prepay my insurance deductible (several hundred dollars) before a doctor even saw me. Helped a friend get to the ER in Phoenix and it was about 3 hours.
Only ~8% of people are uninsured so I wouldn't be so quick to distance yourself from being "the general public". Besides, you don't need insurance to be stabilized in an ER that only comes into play after (or if you enter with a non-emergency). 30 minutes is pretty good though, especially if it's the latter type of visit, it'd be about 3x better than the best state average https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/rankings-and-ratings/e.... Specific location and severity have more to do with ER wait times than your insurance. Travel can often be a "spin the wheel" type situation. I'm lucky to have short wait times near where I live but on some work trips I haven't been so lucky.
I am fully insured in the United States. An appointment with my primary for something urgent is typically a week out, if I can't wait a week I am advised to go to an emergency room. An appointment with a specialist, if I can get one, is typically six months out. An average emergency room visit is typically a three hour wait to be triaged, additional multiple hours to talk to someone about my condition.
I live in Massachusetts. I would take a public system over what we have now, no questions asked.
How old are you and what are your insurance premiums and deductibles? Generally the US healthcare system works better the more money you have and the less risk you have.
> I’d fear I’d be fighting for attention alongside the general public
Are you not a part of the "general public"? If it is true that there is a class of people who don't have your advantages and therefore have worse medical care, is that a situation that you see as acceptable?
It always seems strange to me when people argue this about this issue from a hypothetical perspective, when we have a wealth of actual data that we can use to compare health outcomes. We can just look at the results and see what works better!
(TLDR: the US spends much more per capita on healthcare, especially in administrative costs, and has worse health outcomes than most wealthy countries).
> If it is true that there is a class of people who don't have your advantages and therefore have worse medical care, is that a situation that you see as acceptable?
The answer is obviously yes, given that they don't want the "general public" to have the same level of access and make them potentially have to endure any longer waits. Their convenience is more important than the health of others.
People love feeling like they're better than someone else, that's an ideal that's been floating around the US for quite some time. Ingroup outgroup stuff, great way for capital owners to keep the workers fighting amongst themselves and keep the attention where they want it
To me this is similar to being "stuck in traffic" as if it is something that you are experiencing. No, you ARE the traffic. The congestion didn't come to ruin your day. You contributed to it too.
I find it hard to believe you have never waited more than 30 minutes in an emergency room. I can't ever remember waiting less and I've always had pretty good insurance.
ERs, even in US, will triage patients by need, not quality/quantity of insurance. If they're seeing insured ankle sprains before uninsured strokes/heart attacks, they're going to get sued to dust.
If I was in a public system, I’d fear I’d be fighting for attention alongside the general public, so I’m not convinced it would be better.