Canadian Health Care Wait Time : Not Days, but Months

Exactly who are the people that continue to exalt the Canadian medical system of single payer? Wait time for service is beyond belief but understandable given the Canadian system is controlled by governement.

But hey, no need to guess who in our country wants single payer, it's obvious, it's the same people that shout and wave their collective arms about how great the Cuba medical system is, even though they know that in some cases the final solution to a problem is a 9mm. Cheap and effective, not to mention, relatively painless.

Who are these people that claim to be the smartest in the room, they are progressive socialists liberal Democrats. The same people that brought us ObamaCare even though 72% of the population didn't want it. Mr Obama said he wanted single payer and now we are about to feel the full force of that promise.

The next question that has to be asked is who voted in November to make ObamaCare a reality even thought so many stated they didn't want it? Who are these people? Why won't these people stand up for all to see and proclaim their allegiance to ObamaCare?

Waiting Your Turn
Source: Bacchus Barua and Nadeem Esmail, "Waiting Your Turn," Fraser Institute, December 2012.

December 14, 2012
The Fraser Institute has released the results of its survey of waiting times for elective medical treatments in Canada.

•Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 Canadian provinces reported an average waiting time of 17.7 weeks between general practitioner referral and the elective treatment.
•Wait times for referral by general practitioner and consultation with a specialist fell to 8.5 weeks from 9.5 weeks one year ago.
•There was an estimated 870,462 people waiting for procedures across all 10 provinces.
•Assuming each person waits to have only one procedure done, that means 2.5 percent of Canadians were waiting for treatment.
•However, the report shows 10.3 percent of patients were on the waiting list because they chose to wait.

It should also be noted that there is substantial variation in wait times between provinces and the different specialties.

•Ontario, for example, report an average wait time of 14.9 weeks.
•However, New Brunswick reports an average of 35.1 weeks.
•As far as specialties, patients report the longest wait time between referral and orthopedic surgery, at 39.6 weeks.
•But those waiting for oncology treatment wait only about 4.1 weeks.

While the report does show that wait times are decreasing overall for Canadians, it still highlights that wait times are at a historic level. Many physicians agree that the wait times go far beyond what would be considered reasonable.

From an economic point of view, these wait times represent a large loss of economic output.

•The cost of waiting for treatments such as total joint replacement, cataract surgery, coronary artery bypass and MRI scans was an estimated $14.8 billion in 2007.
•In 2010, the cost of waiting per patient was an additional $1,144.
•As a result of dealing with long wait lines, 0.9 percent of patients opted to receive treatments in another country.