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
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
929 points (98.8% liked)
Political Memes
9200 readers
2354 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
load more comments
(2 replies)
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.
I am also Canadian and having used both healthcare system, I want to tell you that your Canadian conservative friends and conservative political talking points are all lying to you. It's far faster in Canada than in America.
My point of view was from a suburb in Toronto and Vancouver vs NYC and Seattle.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Am Canadian. Got stung by a wasp on the foot last Saturday. Got worried yesterday when i noticed the red area around the sting grew. Contacted my gp's office at the CLSC, got an appointment to see her this morning, got a scrip for antibiotics since she thinks it's likely an infection, picked it up this pm and starting it tonight. 0$ for the consult, antibiotics are ~60$ (that's the only place my private insurance kicks in, my out of pocket is 12$).
And this is a very standard experience in Quebec - with 1 caveat: my family's fortunate enough to have an assigned GP, there's a shortage and a pretty long (2y I think) waiting list; on the flip side there are a ton of walking/24/48h appointment clinics (also 0$) for those without.
When i say 0$, i want to be clear: it's not free, it's part of what's covered by the RAMQ, which is the provincial health insurance company, but our yearly premium for that insurance is at most 800$.
That's what happens when the health insurance is designed to hedge and amortize social costs rather than generate profits...
load more comments
(5 replies)
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
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Compared to European countries, no. Compared to Canada, yes.
Elective surgery means surgery that can improve quality of life, but is not otherwise life saving right?
Canada also has the lowest number of doctors per 10k, and the lowest wait for primary care.
The US has more doctors, but the highest time to primary care.
I don't know many elective surgeries that can be scheduled without a primary care referring the patient to the surgeon for consult. Not to mention, beside plastic surgery, it's usually a case where the patient has no idea they could benefit from the elective surgery.
That graph is highly misleading.
Canada also has the lowest number of doctors per 10k, and the lowest wait for primary care.
That's assuming you even have primary care. There's a desperate shortage of family doctors in Ontario.
load more comments
(3 replies)
What stands out to me on that chart is that the US is more than twice as bad as any other country when it comes to wait time for primary care appointments.
right? like what is that… i consider a wait of more than a couple of days to be too long and just go to a random walk-in clinic… in a month most problems are gone already on their own or have gotten way out of control
Not remotely, no. I've been on a wait-list for a few weeks for appointments that are a minimum scheduled 3 months in advance.
It is a common talking point people use when justifying their anti-universal healthcare stance.
It is often paired with refusing to acknowledge the current state of US healthcare and thinking they are paying more for quality and access.
load more comments
(12 replies)
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?
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 🤑
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
When it's free or super low cost, it's paid by the government. This means the government has a vested interest in keeping you healthy so they don't have to pay more. It's a great set up.
Plus more preventative care. Get something checked out early rather than waiting months and now being treated inpatient.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(9 replies)
Why do you think healthcare is tied to employment?
They only want to help if they can get a return on their investment. That's all we are to them.
load more comments
(3 replies)