this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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Yes, the reason we are sliding slowly into the American mercenary system. It robs talent and denies equal access to non-rich. It should be criminal.
It's a blight but with a huge fan club.
Why does it have a huge fan club? What's wrong with the public system?
Lots. Wait times are high, getting a family doctor is a Herculean task, getting refered to a specialist is a gauntlet of tasks with months/years wait.
Don't get me wrong, if you have an emergency, you'll be seen quickly and cared for by professionals. Cancer treatments, life threatening stuff, amazing care.
But trying to be proactive or deal with long standing but "minor" issues is... Well, very very difficult. And it's costly, because every appointment is a missed day/half day of work and gas/travel to said specialists, and you rarely get to choose when they happen.
So people who can afford it obviously want to skip the line. So politicians make excuses for why a private system actually helps the public one. You know, by stealing the talent away from the public system, reducing volume and therefore advocacy for the public system and many other problems.
That and US Pharma/private healthcare corporations would LOVE to be able to set up shop up here and suck us dry like they do their own.
I've been tempted on occasion to try and seek paid care for chronic quality of life issues that my doctor just doesn't have the time for. It took 6 years and 8 visits with 3-4 months between to try some over the counter crap the I had tried on my own but didn't work, but she wouldn't send the reference because "the specialist will just make you do this first, so at the very least when you get to them you can "skip" this..... Except I had to do it and wait without seeing someone who knew anything....
It's stuff I can live with, and with the work I do, getting a random day off isn't easy, so I go through "well it's fine" phases and then "no really I want this fixed". Phases. I have a friend who just went to the states (2 years ago) and had 6 appointments in a week and had all her concerns addressed, with followup phonecalls and another visit for one issue...
Why our system doesn't work better is because there is more money to be made (on a corporate ledger, not a "society actually saves money with healthy happy people" way) if it slowly fails and privatizes.