That’s why you get complaints about healthcare wait times in Canada and the UK when people propose adopting fully nationalized systems like those.

Those complaints come from people with decent to good insurance that have never been bitten by a denial, which unfortunately is the majority of the employed population. People are very bad at voting for something that hurts them directly (lack of abundance of immediate healthcare) to solve an issue that hasn’t directly impacted them.

We do have highest spending for healthcare among peers, having healthcare universal wouldn’t necessary mean long wait times.

How far were you willing to travel? In my local smaller city a skin cancer specialist was also unavailable for several weeks but I was able to take a two hour trip to the Mayo Clinic and got in there 2 days later with a referral.

In the UK it’s controlled at a a national level and you can’t travel two hours with an overnight stay to fix it like you can in the US.

Separately from specialists, urgent care facilities have a very high density here so immediate things can be addressed quite quickly.

>having healthcare universal wouldn’t necessary mean long wait times.

I have yet to see a system where that’s true. A friend got pneumonia in Canada and had to wait 14 hours in the ER before being diagnosed and given antibiotics.

I don’t think you can get all 3 of cheap, good, and fast. That adage applies to everything else in the world.

if we are talking about traveling 2 hours to get care UK people can hit the airplane and head on over to Serbia/Romania/... and get whatever care they want for 1/20th of the price (plus a little R&R time...)

I have yet to see a system where that’s true. A friend got pneumonia in Canada and had to wait 14 hours in the ER before being diagnosed and given antibiotics.

you are taking one example of one friend. I have both friends as well as family in Canada who basically say all the time that it is absolute BS what American's get fed via media what it is like to have universal healthcare in Canada.

This is similar to how everyone thinks that VA healthcare system is "broken" in the United States - same thing - have both friends and family who served in the Armed Forces that swear by VA and have never had a single issue getting care/medicine/...

The lobby for current health care system is stroooooong and is working hard to make you believe that a different system (where they are cut out completely) will just be very very bad for ya...

i don't like the curret system but it isn't as bad as you would think if you read he comnents on the internet.

I also have family in Canada that first-hand say that what we are reading here about Canada’s health care system is absolute garbage and lies… so there’s that…

Not sure what you mean by “at large” but it certainly reflects the reality for the majority of people. That’s why it fails to garner political support to disrupt.

This is 100% not why it "fails to garner political support to disrupt." there are things in the US (e.g. universal background checks on gun purchases) that are supported by majority of the population that will never happen. the reason there is no political support is that political support in the USA is bought by the very people that benefit from the current system which is entirely broken to the core - through and through. people that are making money from the current broken system have made you believe all kinds of things - it is understandable as we are talking about very powerful people :)