As Tim Noah points out at MSNBC, people wait at least as long, and probably longer, to get a doctor’s appointment in the private sector than they do at the Veterans’ Administration.
Directly comparable data for the private sector are unavailable. But a 2014 survey (pdf) of physician wait times found the average private-sector wait time to be 18.5 days – two and a half days less than at the VA. In Boston, which has a high concentration of top-quality private-sector hospitals, the average wait time was 45.4 days.
This private-sector survey almost certainly skews low because it was conducted in 15 cities rather than the entire country, and because it was limited to five specialties (cardiology, dermatology, obstetrics-gynecology, orthopedic surgery, and family practice). Also, the survey was limited to Medicare and Medicaid patients, many of whom—a quarter of the Medicare patients and more than half of the Medicaid patients — the doctors declined to treat at all, reducing their wait times artificially to zero. Since everyone requesting a VA appointment comes pre-approved, VA health providers must make appointments for 100% of those who request one.
If the Republicans want to make the scandal at a few veterans’ hospitals into an argument against socialized medicine, they are going to lose that argument.
And for the record, when my employer-provided insurance kicked in, I found my doctor was not participating in the plan.
#suckonit
On the other hand… I cold called a doctor within 1 mile of my home on a friday and got an appointment at 8 am on monday. So… I took down the average.
I realize that we all want to make life seem worse than it really is to justify our liberal intervention, but sometimes… it is unseemly.
Things vary from place to place, but largely things are relatively fine for those of us with jobs that include health care benefits. It’s the elderly and impoverished that have a hard time of it, and they are the ones (Medicare/Medicaid) who generally have these longer wait times.
Well, sure, if the facts-in-evidence that comprise Reality were decisive.
Somehow, though, despite comprehensive denial of Reality going back decades now, they seem to somehow have managed to soldier on, relying solely on dogma at odds with Reality — at times even coming out “on top” (with critical, decisive assist from the incompetence/malfeasance of Corporate Media) by employing that strategy.
American Democracy is dead.
Where did that data about short wait times come from, the VA? We are already hearing about doctored statistics. My brother-in-law uses Hines VA Hospital for his Medical needs and had already told me about months getting an appointment. He thought it was just Hines, where he worked before he retired. Now we know it was more than Hines.
I was a staunch advocate of single-payer but now I am unsure. What do you do when the sole Health care provider doesn’t give a damn if you live or die?
“I was a staunch advocate of single-payer but now I am unsure. What do you do when the sole Health care provider doesn’t give a damn if you live or die? ” I am going to guess that public health care providers will ALWAYS be more likely to care about this than private for-profit.
A good point, but private insurance companies can be sued. Have you ever dealt with SS, the IRS, DCFS? Actually, of those three, DCFS is the most caring but the most rule bound. SS lives to deny you your benefits and the IRS is always right by definition.
“What do you do when the sole Health care provider doesn’t give a damn if you live or die?”
That’s complete BS. The wait times aren’t because health care providers don’t care, it’s because they’re stretched too thin.
How many doctors and nurses would there be if medical school and nursing school was 100% free in this country?
There is a shortage of doctors and nurses. Not a shortage of medical professionals who care.
Go ask an average doctor or nurse who aren’t working in a private, for-profit hospital/clinic how many hours a week they work now, and how many hours their employer have to offer.
Of course, then you run into socialism by providing society with doctors and nurses who were trained on the public dole. Sure, less people die, but then, everyone is a slave. So we can’t have that.
#Freedumb
Didn’t say the providers didn’t care. I said the provider, i.e. the system, the bureaucracy, the top managers. In my work experience, 54 years less two years unemployment, most workers care about doing a good job and will go the extra mile for the customer or just for teamwork, and most managers (not all) are self-centered fawning dictatorial scum who who would drown their grandmother for a promotion. Dieing clients don’t matter if they can get a bonus. Witness the GM ignition switch scandal.