Originally posted by Snrrub
I'm going to guess that only a tiny fraction of those lack health insurance by choice.
And that would be a terrible guess, since a significant portion of those who do not have health insurance choose not to. Either because they are young, healthy, and choose to spend their money differently, or because they are between jobs and decide to roll the dice until they get new insurance. I did not have health insurance for at least 3-5 years when I got out of school because I decided to invest that money into Threshold. That worked out pretty well for me.

Also, it is important to note that people are not denied treatment due to a lack of ability to pay. Medicare and Medicaid pay for the elderly and the poor, and emergency rooms do not turn people away regardless of ability to pay.

Originally posted by Snrrub
For the purpose of this post, I'm going to neglect American patients who receive care via government assistance and also neglect Canadian patients who receive care privately - whether by visiting a private Canadian hospital or clinic, or by seeking private care in another nation.
Why would you neglect this? Without the ability for Canadians to come to the US for private treatment, and for superior treatment for which Canada simply lacks sufficiently skilled doctors, the Canadian system would be in even worse shape. You can't simply ignore these elements.

Furthermore, the biggest provider of health care in the USA is the government - by far. Through Medicare, Medicare, VA, and government employment heath care, they are the dominant provider of health care even in the USA. That's part of the problem, actually.

Originally posted by Snrrub
In order to logically show that waiting time makes the Canadian healthcare system worse than the American healthcare system, one would have to demonstrate that lack of access in Canada due to waiting times is worse than lack of access in the USA due to an inability to pay.
I believe it is inherently worse in a socialized system, because denial of health care happens due to something completely out of my control. In a socialized system you are at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats deciding how many people they have budgeted treatment for your type of ailment. At least in a private system I can decide how much it is worth to me to pay for the care.

It all boils down to how you want a scarce resource (health care) to be distributed. Do you want it distributed by politicians making the choice, or by the actual people making the choice. It is a classic command economy vs. market economy question.

Originally posted by Snrrub
In Canada, the waiting time of a patient to access care is related to the urgency with which they require care. Rather than being on a first-come-first-serve basis, most health services are provided to the more urgent cases before the less urgent cases, regardless of when those patients entered 'the line'.
That's not true at all. If someone already has the hospital bed, they are rarely going to be thrown out. Or if the money is already spent, there's no more money for someone with a more urgent condition. If there is no more money for transplants, or cancer drugs, or an expensive procedure, or hospital beds, and someone with more severe need shows up, too bad.

Socialized medicine operates on a budget, and that budget is decided upon in advance of the actual need. If needs exceed the budget allotment (which it almost always does), then people are simply turned away.

So in truth, people in a socialized system are denied health care for two major reasons:

1) Wait times
2) The government's inability to pay (not enough money allocated via the budget).


Originally posted by Snrrub

Of course, Canadian waiting times in most cases represent a terrible inconvenience, rather than an impenetrable barrier to care (clearly there are exceptions, namely if the person dies before care is provided).
By that logic, inability to pay is simply a terrible inconvenience, rather than an impenetrable barrier to care - unless someone dies before they earn enough money to pay for it. But again, this is not even accurate, because people are very rarely *denied* health care because of an inability to pay.

In a socialized system, you can die while waiting in line for care, or you can die while waiting for the politicians to allocate enough funds to pay for the care you need. Or you can die because politicians decide the type of care you need is not called for at this time, or any other decisions they make for how to allocate health care. In all of these situations, you have no options under the system. You can't save up money, you can't borrow money, you can't raise money, nothing. Either the politicians decide you get the health care or not.

I would much prefer being the one who makes my decisions about my health care. Having politicians (who are almost always corrupt) decide a year or more in advance how much money will be budgeted towards my type of ailment does not sit well with me at all. Even worse, having politicians decide when people get certain types of care, under what conditions, etc. is even worse. It is like the worst HMO ever because you don't even have alternatives (short of fleeing south to the USA).