Nikolai

Of course wait times will increase with universal coverage. Why? Because seeing a doctor for an injury is no longer a gamble about whether or not it was worth all the money to do so. For example, when I burned my arm a couple years ago, I shrugged it off and said I was going to wait and see what happens. My wife, who grew up in Canada, wanted me to go to the ER right away. I held out, and, in the end, it turned out just fine. You can barely see the scar. But, perhaps I might have been more receptive to seeing a doctor if I knew there weren't going to be a smorgasbord of charges that I was going to have to fight over with my insurance company?

It's anecdotal, but as a rule, my ER wait times were a lot higher in Canada than they were in the US. YMMV

Is it worth it to have longer waits to ensure that everyone has access to health care without getting run into the poor house? You decide.

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We get what we deserve.

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“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

The Brandon Five

Well if the wait takes too long I am not sure that you can characterize it as "access". Like if the wait time for a colonoscopy exceeds the amount of time it takes for the colon cancer to reach the point of no return then the fact that you don't have any bills will be of little comfort.

shirtsleeve

In this you are right. I can vouche for the sickest person in the ER gets seen frist. I hope the new bill does not change that.

I know that the previous statement is not true, it makes me sad.

Nikolai

To clarify, emergency or major surgeries like that get pushed to the front of the line in Canada and Sweden (can't speak for other countries). That's part of the reason why less urgent surgeries have longer waits; i.e. my ex had to have knee surgery and was told she'd have to wait 16 months, but my mother-in-law, who had cancer, got immediate treatment. Just my experience...

__________________
We get what we deserve.

------------------
“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

Two points about ERs and ER wait times.

1) Years ago, when my children were small, two of them suffered from a genetic immune deficiency which necessitated many hospital stays, many doctor visits and many ER visits. They learned the system very early on. One day while sitting in the waiting room the youngest one said to me, "I don't mind waiting, Mom. It means I'm not very sick and I probably won't have to stay."

Words of wisdom from a small person with a lot of experience. They learned that the sicker they were, the faster they got seen and the more likelihood there was that they would be admitted.

It's not a bad way to look at it the next time you're sitting in the waiting room.

2) A goodly percentage of people in the ER are not there because they decided to come it - they're there because their doctor told them to be there. Some doctors, upon getting a phone call from a patient, decide that the patient might need blood work, or a CT, or an X-ray - rather than have them come into the office and then have to send them to a hospital for testing they simply eliminate themselves from the progression and jump from A to C. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it is not. It was not uncommon to have a doctor call in orders to our ER before the patient even got there. Bad thing is, the ER still has to find room for the patient, the ER staff still has to care for the patient and the ER doctor still has to see the patient unless the personal physician promises to come in and see the patient himself within an hour or so. Most personal physicians do not do so.

There are some doctors so bad about it that they do not have answering services or take phone calls from patients. I knew of some doctors, mostly pediatricians, who had the following message on their answering machines. "Hello, you have reached Dr. Noncaring. We are not in the office at the present time. If your child is sick, please take him or her to the Emergency at Smithtown General and tell them that Dr. Noncaring sent you. Thank you."

I cannot tell you how many kids could have been given tylenol or benedryl for their fever or their discomfort and simply stayed home had the doctor bothered to take the call from the parent in the first place.

ERs are staffed, for the most part, with highly skilled, highly motivated, highly dedicated doctors, nurses, techs and secretaries - they work as hard and as fast as they can to assure that everyone gets the care they need as quickly as possible.

That doesn't mean there are not wait times or that there will never be wait times. The very word "Emergency" dictates that there will be. They are unscheduled, unanticipated and sometimes they all happen at the same time.

And the next time you're there and cooling in the waiting room, take heart and console yourself with the thought that if you're waiting, someone with a lot more knowledge than yourself has triaged you and is quite confident that not only are you not dying right now but that you are not in any danger of dying any time in the near future.

PatriotsReign

Relax MrsP....my post was just bait waiting for someone to take a bite.

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"No one walking this earth knows what is truly righteous"

Patters

I think it depends how effective health care reform is. When I lived in Denmark, I once had to go to the emergency room and the wait was 15 minutes, and that's socialized medicine. Among the main ideas of health care reform are to streamline administrative procedures, to create best practices of care, to avoid duplication of efforts, and to increase the use of preventative medicine. The expectation is that this will improve overall health care and allow resources to be used in more intelligent ways. Also, it's worth noting that people without insurance use emergency rooms today. If you have a broken ankle, you go to the ER whether or not you can pay.