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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything.

On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

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I live with private healthcare. The last few trips to the ER have been 8 hour waits, too. This is an under capacity thing. I live in a place that has boomed, and the mismanaged hospital hasn’t remotely kept up. They fired a bunch of folks during COVID, then shocked pikachu found themselves understaffed.

The point is, the entire thing is broken nearly everywhere you look. I don’t know what a better alternative is, but we sure need one.

It's not the same... But what about emergency clinics or walk-in clinics? My brother had a chainsaw accident and they were able to treat him in a few minutes. I kinda hope we get more clinics like this over ER options, I used to go to the ER for a lot of issues until I found these clinics available, now whatever country I'm in America or in Europe I look for them over ER options when available. Good for fevers, fixing injuries, most of the more minor things... I'm not sure about the 8 hour wait but if you already exhausted other options I understand.

I don't know where OP is from, but long-waits frequently are because of triaging higher severity rates.

If you have a chainsaw accident and its serious, you arent going to wait 8 hours

My visit to the Mass General ER in 2012 involved waiting 25 hours for a ready room.

I live in the US. Every trip to the ER has had <5 min. waits. They're so fast, last time my kid had a fever I went there because the after hours pediatrician was a ten minute drive (10>5).

So you millage may vary.

ER visits really vary. In Austin, Texas you may be able to get in a few minutes to a few hours. Just really depends, when my mom when to the ER last year for extremely high blood pressure she had to wait half a day before she could she see anyone and they thought she might have a stroke. She was fine in the end, but if there was a real emergency I can't imagine what we'd do. I remember we went to the ER at like 4pm but it took until like 2am before she was able to get in and they decided to have her stay the day. I stayed up all night waiting for her to get help it was very stressful. Also what a joy of getting that bill literally a year later, you'd think they would have due dates of when they have to send these out!

"Also what a joy of getting that bill literally a year later, you'd think they would have due dates of when they have to send these out!"

I thought they do, in fact, and the bill expires if not sent out in time.

You either live in a miracle land where no one ever gets sick yet ER capacity remains high just in case or your child was on the verge of death. The last time I visited an ER with my child it took 10 minutes just to check in. Then a 2 hour wait to be seen.

Miracle land, and it's probably unsustainable. The hospital is large, but opened just over a year ago. My guess is that my neighbors haven't incorporated it into their routines.

Also, where I live there are five (?) Hospitals with ER within a ten minute drive... in suburbia. There just can't be that many people getting deathly ill sick.

I should add this is for my local ER. Although I've never had a long wait in the US (my wife has), my local ER is literally half empty every time I go there, and the triage area 100% empty.

Last time I went to the ER with my dad it was about a 3-hour wait, and he really needed to get in. Saw a few people who looked like they definitely ought to get help, given the runaround and told it'd be hours and hours of waiting, until they left to try to find another ER with a shorter wait (in one case, the patient was delirious, sweating, and being guided around by a couple friends—I hope she got help somewhere), I assume because they looked like they couldn't pay and were probably uninsured (there was definitely a pattern to who got this treatment), so the staff were doing everything they could to discourage them. Some people who were there when we arrived, were still waiting when we got out, so they'd been there at least 4 hours.

US, and he's insured, and it's supposedly a pretty-good hospital.

I've been to the same ER within months of that, and it was empty and I was back in a room (well, cubby) within 15 minutes, with something just barely severe enough to merit an ER visit. Quick. Fucking expensive (think it was almost $3k by the time they were done sending bills, for 5 stitches and an x-ray—and that's with insurance), but quick.

It was mostly just timing and luck.

> My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything.

Sucks that it happens to anyone, but the final year(s) of healthcare finding a way to soak up every cent, before the end, is basically the norm here in the US. Everyone's retirement savings is just money the healthcare industry's lettings us hold temporarily.

I have never heard of anyone in my city getting in within 3 hours. That would be amazing.

I have both, and the wait at the paid clinic is long, as is the wait at the free clinic.

It’s not whether the cost is socialised or not that decides how long the wait will be.

It also doesn’t help that the private system is incentivised to undermine the ‘free’ system at every turn.

> It’s not whether the cost is socialised or not that decides how long the wait will be

If care is free, aren’t you more likely to go than if you had to pay even a minimal cost?

It more complicated than that unfortunately.

New Zealand has an accident compensation system which pays for accidents (though there may be a small surcharge) but not most medical events. They split the hair finer that is sane. Swallow a foreign body? Medical problem. Swallow a foreign body as say ‘it feels scratched’? Accident. Insect bite? Medical. Mosquito bite? Accident (it’s a distant memory from when I billed these things but I’m fairly confident I’m right).

It’s all to do with cause and effect, and each must be identified.

The accident compensation scheme covers a portion of wages too. Medical problems cost, not US style but not free.

Yeah man I love spending my time in the hospital.

Are you? I kind of try to avoid going to doctors and particularly hospitals and ER/EDs as much as possible. Between people with contagious illnesses, and huge amounts of wasted time, I have very little incentive to use as much healthcare as possible.

> It also doesn’t help that the private system is incentivised to undermine the ‘free’ system at every turn.

By competing on ... what? Can't be price (because "free" wins). The only other option is competing on quality.

Your statement doesn't sound correct.

Staff, including very senior staff often work in both systems. They then hire staff from the public system into the private one. This runs down the public system. There are accusations that they don't work fast or efficiently in the public system, leading to inefficiency. Senior staff with roles or even ownership of private facilities arrange contracts for outsourcing of work to private facilities. I have worked in both systems and currently work in the private setting.

Competition isn't the only way for a private system to have influence on a non-private system. You understand that, right?

> Competition isn't the only way for a private system to have influence on a non-private system. You understand that, right?

I already asked what the ways are; why are you replying saying there are ways?

I literally asked "In what ways?" and you are replying "handwaving There Are Ways" ...

No, you did not. You specified that you're only looking at competition, and then replied to yourself that there isn't anything else.

In case you really can't imagine alternatives: what if the private system spreads lies about the non-private system? What if they use their influence to change laws and regulations to prefer their system? What if they use their influence to make others with influence treat those using the non-private system worse?

None of these are competition in the sense you're asking for, and yet they are a natural consequence of private incentives.

I think another component to the equation in wait times is also doctors per capita and GDP per capita.

It's hard to compare apples to oranges but with high doctors per capita, low wait times for speciality services, long lived citizens and a far lower percentage of GDP spent on health, I wonder if there are any serious holes to poke in Italy's system when compared to the U.S. or if they simply just beat us on every metric.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/242e3c8c-en/1/3/2/index...

Interestingly we do better on doctors per 1000 than the US.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?location...

I just had kidney stones, while extremely painful not very high on the er totem pole. Got in, got a bed, IV all within 10 minutes of walking in. There's at least 30 hospitals in my metro and hundreds of urgent cares.

$1500 on my HSA plan, which btw right now is returning 4.6% in a money market. How awesome is that?

Great deal. Worst pain ever.

Last time I was the ER in the US, I waited four hours with a pretty serious fever. Talked to a doctor for maybe 5 minutes and got sent home. Cost me only $500.

If only there were some automated system you could talk to to decide whether it's worth going to the ER in the first place...

We have a free health line. It operates 24/7. You talk to an operator who puts you in a queue to talk to a triage nurse. They tell you if you need to go to the ER.

My urgent care facility, the only option between 5pm and 9am or on weekends, pretty much sends everyone to the ER as a precaution. If it’s serious enough, they’ll call ahead and get you into the triage system before you arrive.

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