The US does not have shorter waits. Try scheduling an appointment with a primary care doctor, their schedule starts like a month and a half out
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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Sorta makes some sense. People wait until it’s critical and then get rushed in with a heart attack, or they go to walk-in clinics which are a growing trend - a major downside is you don’t have a regular doctor that knows you health trends and can keep up a plan for you. Walk-ins start you from scratch every time. Getting to see your PCP, if you have one? Months for an appointment. Tell them it’s important? Couple weeks. Really important? Tomorrow or go to the ER.
U.S. health care is something else. It took me 7 years to be diagnosed with a well-known disease that has a median survival duration of 2.5 years from onset.
I'll leave it to your imagination the obstacles I faced. Frankly, I don't want to think about it.
How much of what you experienced is due to the medical mindset (doctors are morons)?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean but I would attribute it to four main reasons:
- I'm rural and the quality of physicians here leaves a bit to be desired
- Physicians are overworked and as a result, generally uncaring and unable to provide substantial help.
- It takes months to get the ball rolling on every step of the process
- Insurance is hellbent on denying everything
My situation didn't improve until I was finally referred to a couple physicians in the right specialty who truly care and were willing to fight my insurance.
I moved to a rural location and your four points are exactly how it is. I have to harass my doctor to get them to put in referrals. My wife had to go and physically walk a referral from the doctor to the hopsital across the parking lot to make sure they actually got it. Then stayed and scheduled it right then b/c getting a callback for scheduling is a crapshoot.
That's exactly what I meant, the biggest problem in the medical field is the doctors themselves, they're basically useless at this point. You could replace them with a potato and give you the same first three points of your list, but for cheaper.
Who told you about shorter wait times? Oftentimes you have to wait in months.
US -> Canada here
I hear this often in Canada, but honestly the wait times are similar. In the US it would often take me ~3 months to be able to see my endo. Also, at least you can get healthcare here.
I can see my primary within hours normally, she can’t do much except refer me to who I really need see and those appointments take weeks to make and months to get to.
I have a chronic pain issue and my primary referred me to a specialist that took sox months to see. They referred me to a different specialist with a six month wait-list. They then referred me to a more specific sub-specialist for another three month wait. I live in a reasonably well-off and well populated area, so I'm not out in flyover country or anything. I've heard the same from many people. Short wait-lists in America is a myth.
100%. Took me 3 months to get an ENT appointment. They've still done fuck all about the actual issue almost a year and a half later. The profit incentive is for return customers, not to actually fucking cure anything here.
We desperately need more doctors, and those doctors need to cost less.
Free college would make a big difference for that.
Sort of. The US medical system has multiple choke points, but an undergraduate degree is the least limiting. The bigger barriers are the limited number of med school spots and the even smaller number of residency spots. Med school is a whole discussion, I don't even think you should need an undergraduate degree, but whatever. The final filter is residency spots, which are functionally set by the government. They pay hospitals to take residents, and will only pay for a certain number each year. We gotta increase that number if we want to stop throwing away educated doctors before they can even get to helping people.
My other favorite refrain was the “You can keep your doctor!” crap that was a big selling point for that crowd.
In this system I have had 4 doctors move practices while under their care because they’re playing the capitalist system. I was not able to benefit from continuity of care in any form.
But at least I had to pay for it, not get it for “free” from a natl healthcare system. Yay.
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Shorter wait lmao
I've been waiting for almost a year to see a specialist for my depression
I have health insurance and my parents have money to pay for it, just that we aren't rich enough to skip the line
I accidentally sliced my finger and non stop bleeding in the ER for 5 hours straight.
This was from 2am to 7am. Not exactly peak times.
American healthcare is broken.
I went to the ER in a wealthy part of the Denver metro with abdominal pain and a significant fever. I was in the waiting room for at least 8 hours for them to decide I might have a perforated bowel and I was admitted. It ended up being diverticulitis.
It makes my head explode when people say wait times are longer in countries with public systems because all the hypochondriacs will be abusing it. Motherfucker, wait times are ridiculous now.
I'm glad you're here to tell the tale. Thanks for sharing.
No no. It cant be. Everyone in America keeps telling me the wait times in Canada are so high because of socialized medicine and you only have to wait 7 seconds to see a doctor in the glorious US of A.
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Does american healthcare really have shorter wait times? I've seen a lot of people waiting and done a lot of waiting myself.
Is there any data?
it depends on the insurance, and the providers, kaiser has pretty fast appointments, by usually caters to the west coast, and its pretty expensive hmo plan. some i heard can be weeks or months, depending on where too.
While it may depend on what country you want to compare it to there is nothing about privatization that inherently reduces wait times. My experience is that after leaving the US my wait times are equivalent or improved.
Private insurance just means you wait, it costs a lot more, and you're way more likely to delay treatment of your own accord because the profit motive makes the system a financial terror and a psychological torment.
its also propagandized, designed to make people wait, because the insurance would rather you pay for insurance and not use its services at all, because thats costs them money each time. hence thats why they raise rates for OLDER people(55+), to price them out of the system, and you hare the shitty ones like UHC/UHG, or blue shield deny drugs or procedures all the time.
Remember pre-existing condition exclusions? Hahahs good times 🤑
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if i had to pay for healthcare i better not be fucking waiting.
I probably don't need to tell you this, but don't visit the US.
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U.S. healthcare has shorter waits
Is that even really true to begin with?
My thought exactly. Specialists are booking months out.
I'm not from the US but once I was in Orlando and took a friend to the hospital cause she wasn't feeling well, she had insurance. We waited 4 hrs to even see a doctor, I have never waited that long even in public hospitals in my country
That’s because ERs are the only way poor people see doctors in the US. Since we can’t go see a GP without insurance and a copay, we wait for the stomach pain that could have been treated to turn into sepsis from a gaping ulcer and then crowd into the ER.
You guys should have rioted decades ago, I feel sorry for you, animals live better than (non rich) americans
Still too much to lose, plus the cops have surplus military gear.
americans have pussified/pacified by anti-healthcare propaganda for decades.
i waited that long in public subsidized healthcare, i think they forgot me one time, when they put me in a room, i dint see anyone for like 4 hours because they forgot.
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