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Half of Canadians avoid going to hospital because of long wait times: poll (www.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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A new poll says long wait times lead half of Canadians to avoid seeing a doctor or going to the hospital.

The poll was conducted by Léger and commissioned by right-leaning think-tanks the Montreal Economic Institute, SecondStreet.org, and the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

The percentage of respondents who say they avoid consulting doctors because of wait times is highest among women, people over 55 and Quebecers.

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago (6 children)

No, but it does bring flexibility, including services that the public system won't provide or won't provide soon enough. How long are the waitlists for hip and knee surgeries in your province? Private surgeries could shorten that list and let people who can't afford it move further up.

Let me answer your question with a question. Why do people have private health insurance? Should we make it illegal? What would making it illegal do to the public system?

I'm not saying don't properly fund the public system. It's not either or. It's and. You're stuck on either or because the US is right there. The UK does and. Norway does and. Germany does and. Australia does and. Canada and the US do or, and you know what the results are.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

    Again your point about waiting for surgeries is a non funded public health system. If the emphasis was on patient care they would build in capacity. Private just charges more to perform the same . People have private care through employer because the public system is under funded. It also creates a class system of health care.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago (4 children)

    It does not matter how much money you throw at the public health care system. At the end of the day, it's the government deciding what your priorities are. That may be fine in your 20's, but you won't be there forever. I have absolutely no idea what health issue I'll wake up with tomorrow, but I'm getting to the age where I can't guarantee it's none. If I end up with a health issue that impacts my ability to work, I'm solving that problem as soon as fucking possible - I already have one disability; I don't need two. If the government decides I can weight two years to solve that problem, I'm going to decide that I'm not going to wait two years to solve that problem. What's within Canada's control is whether I decide to solve that problem sooner in Canada or in the US. And right now, it might be more expensive to solve that problem in the US, but that's less time spent with whatever the issue is preventing me from working.

    And that's exactly what I mean about Canada and the US doing either or, and the US being the flip side to Canada's coin. The people who can afford not to rely on the public waitlist are already not relying on the public waitlist. They're just going to the US instead. If that money wasn't leaving Canada, perhaps we can afford to better fund the public system.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

    Dude sorry about your disability. My wife and son both have one, and I must say Ontario is shit for that stuff, BC has been great though.

    Back to our points again, a properly funded healthcare system would not have a 2 year wait. It would have capacity. The trouble is we live in a capitalistic run society, so even if we all agreed fully funded health care was the way, and we always had open capacity to do the work, what you would end up with is:

    A scenario like slow period in the fall as sports wrap up and there's less injuries. There would be open spots and doctors / nurses finally getting some time off, and some opportunistic politician for the opposition would say "omg look at all the wasted tax payer money with idle surgery rooms", and people who can't critically think would be like "oh yeah they are fucking us". Rather than remembering we all agreed human health was the priorty, and not our tax rate.

    And they'd vote for the private solution, not realizing that the tax you save, gets paid out to private, either out if pocket or out of employers insurance... And employers insurance is not free, and hinders employer from hiring more staff or raising wages. (Been through this exact problem at our employer with ever increasing private health insurance premiums causing us to reduce staff, and raise copay, cut services)

    Anyway, its not solely limited to health care. I see the exact same problems in the manufacturing sector depending on if the facility is independently owned (public analogy) or share holder driven(private analogy). In the share holder model with conventional accounting every machine or workcell they want at 100% capacity, which creates waste and bottle neck problems. But they want to cut all costs and increase profit. There metric is not product delivery(human analogy) it is money.

    While the single owner can look outside of stupid metrics and see that their priority is the product throughput (human surgeries) and if one workcell is idle that's fine since they paid for it in the past, and its there for capacity reasons of to fill a sometimes necessary part of the process. But as a capitalistic society we focus on short term funds, and longterm longevity. So private health care looks attractive when your public system keeps getting cuts.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    This is not a capitalism versus socialism thing. This is a government versus individual thing. There will never be adequate capacity, because we will always be catching up to increases in population. The only way to solve the capacity problem is to give that capacity somewhere else to go. Right now, those who can afford to will go to the US.

    But here's the thing. I live in Ottawa. There are, like, four hospitals I could go to if I needed surgery. Right now, under the current system, the government decides both if I need that surgery and how badly I need that surgery. The government gives absolutely 0 fucks if not having that surgery actually impacts me, and that would be true even if the system was properly funded. Me having only 75% mobility, for example, versus the 100% mobility I currently have, might be a low priority to the government but if it's preventing me from doing the things I need to do, it's a high priority for me. I do not have the ability, in Canada, to assert my priorities over the government's. The government says I can wait two years, then I can wait two years. If I lose my job, which then means I lose my apartment, which then means I move back in with my parents, which then means I no longer live in Ottawa, which then increases my costs of getting the care I need under this very same public system if and when the government decides to let me... that's my problem, not the government's. The government created that problem, but it's mine to solve. And my only solution right now is in the US. Solving it in Canada is illegal.

    This is not a hypothetical thing. In fact, in 2008 or 2009, not only did this happen but the Republicans in the US beat Obama and the Democrats over the head with it when they wanted to bring in some kind of universal health care - look up Shona Holmes. She had a tumor that resulted in her going blind. It wasn't life threatening, so the Ontario government at the time said she could wait. Of course she exagerated the hell out of it (the tumor was not going to kill her, according to the Mayo Clinic), but it didn't need to. The government said she was a low priority, her life was impacted (going blind as an adult will do that), she could afford to solve the problem. Solving the problem is still illegal in Canada, so she solved it in the US. She should have been allowed to solve it in Canada, but government said no.

    That is the problem, and no amount of funding the public system will solve that problem. If the government decides you're not deserving, then you're not deserving. Even if the government can afford it. Because here's the important part. The government isn't thinking about you. The government's thinking about society. And if society doesn't consider your problem a high priority, neither will the government. Just ask anyone on ODSP.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    The thing is though the government system has set limits (and Ontario has been terrible at underfunding and cost cuts) so the reason they determine you at 75% can wait two years is because they have enough funds only to do the person before you at 50 mobility. More funds would be less wait, and less of those govt decisions.

    The thing with private is you could go ahead and jump the line if you had funds. So it becomes a two tiered system, a poor person with a tumor would still die because they can't pay.

    Its the orphan crushing machine problem. Private care doesn't solve why we needed it inbthr first place.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 week ago

    I admire your optimism. I think it's seriously misplaced, but you have it and that's a good thing.

    We could drive up the deficit specifically for health care, and you'd have the same problem. Because having the money and wanting to spend the money are two different things. There is always going to be someone who needs more help than you. And the government is always going to put them first. I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm saying if they're going to do that, they should grant you the ability to help yourself. Because that person with 50% mobility may be waiting on someone with 40% mobility. The person with 40% mobility may be waiting on someone with a spinal injury. It snowballs. Meanwhile, both the person with the 50% mobility and me with 75% mobility are being impacted and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. More funding does not change that, because the problem is not how much money the government has but where the government is choosing to spend it. And if the government chooses not to spend that money on my surgery, tripling the amount of money the government has access to doesn't necessarily change that.

    The problem was never the government can't afford my surgery. The problem was the government decided my surgery wasn't needed, or a priority. In fact, the entire idea behind universal health care was never about whether or not the government could afford it. The assumption was it could. The idea was always about prioritizing who needed that universal health care most. In other words, you were promised access. You weren't promised when. And if you have access to a replacement knee in two years, well, the government met its obligation. Does it help you? Yes, in two years. What do you do until then? Not the government's problem.

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