| ▲ | FlyingAvatar a day ago |
| I would posit this is more of a function of Canada having too few machines, with a median wait of 10 weeks for an MRI. [1] To me it's crazy that people are waiting an average of nearly 3 months to get imaging. This is probably after waiting a couple months for their doctor's appointment to get the MRI scheduled in the first place. [1] [https://getmrifast.ca/mri-wait-times] |
|
| ▲ | OsrsNeedsf2P a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| One of the reasons I left Canada was it took me 6 months to get an MRI after a severe head injury in 2017. I have since gladly paid nearly 500k in taxes to other countries. Fuck Canada. |
| |
| ▲ | idontwantthis a day ago | parent | next [-] | | If I were waiting that long I’d fly to SE Asia. I got one in Cambodia same week for $1200. | | |
| ▲ | l1tany11 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Multiple times in Southern California I’ve gotten an mri for like $350-400 next day, in a 3T machine with Simonmed. | |
| ▲ | kasey_junk 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can easily find MRI in the US for less than half of that. Though a trip to SE Asia sounds nice. |
| |
| ▲ | skylurk a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Clearly you had the means...
was it not possible to pay for private healthcare? | | |
| ▲ | excannuk a day ago | parent | next [-] | | No, that's illegal. Thats what single payer means, only one payer is allowed [1]. Is meant to encourage rich people to support the health system since everyone's in it. But in reality the very wealthy go to Buffalo and immigrants visit their home countries. It's also not lost on public policy experts that MAID has the potential of "solving" a lot of structural problems in Canadian health care and... long and behold MAID has expanded tremendously in ten years. [1] with some exceptions largely grandfathered in | | |
| ▲ | bigDinosaur a day ago | parent | next [-] | | That's not what single payer actually means, since Australia has both a single payer public system and a separate private system. The part that allows these to both exist is that the public system has vast resources (i.e. an entire national/set of state governments) that can act as one for immense negotiating power. This does not preclude a private system from existing. | | |
| ▲ | b112 21 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Legal definitions vary from legal jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and in Canada? That's what it means. In Australia it can mean something different. | |
| ▲ | excannuk 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
| |
| ▲ | scratcheee a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not how it works in the UK, everyone pays into public single-payer healthcare, but you’re free to buy your own private healthcare on top if you like. | | | |
| ▲ | monocasa 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Medical imaging and diagnostic testing is one of services allowed by private healthcare in Canada. > Diagnostic Testing: Private labs and clinics provide quicker access to diagnostic tests such as MRI scans, blood tests, and X-rays, which can expedite treatment plans. https://schwartzcohenlaw.com/does-canada-offer-private-healt... | |
| ▲ | Cpoll 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There are private clinics like Medcan, which you can pay for checkups, referrals, etc., so it's not all single payer. You usually end up in the same queue for MRIs though, so it doesn't help there. | |
| ▲ | gremlinunderway a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not meant to "encourage the rich to support" the health system, it's meant to avoid completely gutting the public health system by creating a parallel pay-for-play system where only the richest pay and subsequently suck up all of the already finite resources and talent. Introducing parallel private health care is just accelerationism for privatization wonks who want to just see the death of universal healthcare by sucking it dry for those willing to pay. There's no magic wand with the resources available for healthcare. Creating private systems so rich people can skip the line doesnt magically create that capability, it means taking that capability from someone who maybe needed it more in the public side of things. | | |
| ▲ | glenra a day ago | parent | next [-] | | In most other contexts, rich people being able to spend money for some good or service would simply induce more supply ultimately making the product cheaper and better for the masses as well. The rich get to be "early adopters" buying a product when it's expensive and not very good; the poor as "late adopters" get to buy a product that is cheaper and works better once the bugs have been worked out. So...why exactly are resources and talent considered "finite" when it comes to health care and shouldn't we maybe look at FIXING that rather than take it for granted? Consider, say, food distribution: McDonalds has traditionally made far more money as a private business catering to the tastes of the poor and middle-class than any fancy restaurant ever made catering to the rich. Do fancy restaurants like Per Se "suck up all the resources" needed to cook and serve food? Does the existence of fancy restaurants hurt McDonald's by making it harder to find burger-flippers? And does McDonalds in turn "suck up all the resources" thereby making it harder for people in some other context to find and acquire food? If not, what makes healthcare so different? | | |
| ▲ | M95D 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not comparable. If there were a limited number of licensed cooks like there are doctors, it would be far different. |
| |
| ▲ | excannuk 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
| |
| ▲ | pfannkuchen a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > But in reality the very wealthy go to Buffalo This has to be a brand new sentence (post 1950s anyway). | | |
| |
| ▲ | Scoundreller a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For ~90% of the population, it’s right there under 200km away. | |
| ▲ | brink a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | What does that have to do with the conversation here? | | |
| ▲ | readthenotes1 a day ago | parent [-] | | Some countries have a dual insurance system that might allow wealthier people to get better access. Think of Steve Jobs jumping to the head of the line for a liver transplant | | |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | pinkmuffinere a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That is kindof crazy! Imagine you are suspicious that something is awry in your soft tissue, in which case I think MRI is the main diagnostic (?). Then you don’t find out for ten weeks, plus some for analysis! |
| |
| ▲ | EA-3167 a day ago | parent [-] | | MRI's are expensive and difficult to amortize for poorer countries or ones that don't have a great healthcare system. https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-magnet... Japan is a standout, and then you see most of the West just below them... Canada is way down the list. | | |
| ▲ | rdtsc a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > MRI's are expensive and difficult to amortize for poorer countries or ones that don't have a great healthcare system Canada is towards the bottom. I see what you did there. I guess I never considered Canada a poor country or one with a bad healthcare system. But at the same time I was only there a few times to a major city and never interacted with their healthcare system. | |
| ▲ | excannuk a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
|
|
|
| ▲ | analog31 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Waiting 10 weeks for an MRI is consistent with my experience in the US. This could be a regional thing. When my mom lived in her home state, she had nearly same-month or even same-week access to specialists. Now, living in my state, most appointments are booked more than a year out. She has talked about flying back to her home state every year to have her annual appointments. This is medical tourism within the country. Not only did I have to wait for my MRI, but as the date approached, I got a call saying that they had canceled it because the insurance refused to cover it. I offered to pay out of pocket. Nope, they simply canceled it. Of course if you can pay for quicker care in another country, it will seem like care in that country is quicker, but the people living in that country might not have the same privilege. Most of the people I know who move here from outside the US think our system is insane. There's a billboard on my way to work for a private medical imaging service that offers shorter wait times. |
| |
| ▲ | kasey_junk 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fwiw I’ve had next day non-emergency mri (and sadly same day emergency mri). And this was across 2 states. I absolutely believe that coverage is spotty. But mri machines are extremely common in most places in the US. |
|
|
| ▲ | gruez a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| >https://getmrifast.ca/mri-wait-times It's sad that seemingly the top result for this search term is an AI slop lead-gen site, rather than the actual source: >Disclaimer: Wait times shown are estimates based on publicly reported data from the Fraser Institute, CIHI, and provincial health authority reports. |
| |
| ▲ | gremlinunderway a day ago | parent [-] | | Also citing Fraser Institute, a known extremely right-wing hack "think tank" is like citing a used car salesman on the benefits of buying a car. Their entire raison d'etre is to privatize any remaining public good in Canada, so they will always hunt for any kind of information or data they can to paint whatever picture they want from their lobby funds. |
|
