Just a reminder that the european and canadian healthcare systems have abysmal wait times, to the point that people can often expiernce permanent life injuries or even death due to the extreme wait times to be treated. While emergencies are usually treated quickly most things that cause long term injury aren't emergencies.

and the worst wait times, often resulting in harm

% of people waiting more than 2 months for a specialist.

Germany 2x vs USA, new zealand 4x, sweden 3x, australia, 3x, France 3x, canada 5x.. all % of people waiting more than 2 months for a specialist

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-wait-times-by-country

#healthcare #health #medicine #biology

@freemo That is definitely something that needs fixing. Although do more of a percentage of people actually go to the doctor in countries with socialized healthcare?
Might explain the wait times.

@Zach777 I'm not sure, but probably. Also coupled with the fact that you have less doctors per population because doctors get paid much less, so fewer people become one. Insurance is effectively an artificial monopoly in single payer, or a coalition monopoly in universal insurance. The result of either of those are price fixing without much pressure on quality. For which this is the result.

Obviously the american system is better in some ways but has its own issues (such as being wasteful in terms of cost, despite having good quality of outcomes).

In the end it is clear to me neither system works and therefore neither should be emulated. The solution in my eyes is co-op based insurance. It removes the greed-factor by making those insured the owners of the insurance company, and preserves the supply-demand pressures by allowing people to switch insurance if they dont like the quality.

@freemo I never heard that there were less doctors per capita in other countries due to lower pay.
Do you have a source I can look at?

@Zach777 its been years since i saw that statistic... I can try to dig it up again, no promises.