wait times to see a doctor in the United States are worse than other industrialized countries

July 18, 2007 More Humane and More Efficient National Health Insurance By ROBERT WEISSMAN ...
The health insurance industry and its allies have worked hard to respond to SiCKO by promulgating a series of deceptions. It's awfully hard to defend the current U.S. system, so their emphasis is on criticizing other countries' healthcare systems.

They have a lot of practice at this stuff. Get on a call with people like Sarah Berk of Health Care America and Sally Pipes and John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute, and they will compellingly recite three key misleading arguments:
* People in other countries have to suffer through long waiting periods before seeing a doctor or getting treatment.
* National health plans ration care.
* "Government-controlled healthcare" or "government monopoly healthcare" is inherently of inferior quality.
When you don't feel well, or need treatment, you want to see a doctor right away. So, the image of waiting lists to get treatment has some resonance.

But exactly how easy is it to see a doctor in the United States?

It turns out that the answer is the same as in other countries: It depends.

Live in the United States and have a bad rash and need to see a dermatologist? ... [Washington DC] ... The average wait to get in the door is 36 days. ... OB/GYNs and asked how long the wait would be for a woman who found a lump on her breast. The answer on average: 16 excruciating days.

In fact, wait times to see a doctor in the United States are worse than other industrialized countries -- all of which have national health insurance -- except for Canada, where the system has been starved of funding (but overall performance is still better than the United States on most key measures).

In 2005, the Commonwealth Fund commissioned phone surveys of sicker adults in New Zealand, Germany, Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States.

In the United States, ... doctor's appointment the same day or the next day. This was worse than every other country except Canada. In New Zealand, 81 percent reported being able to see a doctor by the next day. ...

What about rationing?

In the private insurance system in the United States, rationing is done by the health insurance industry, which rations with an eye both to health needs and the insurers' profitability.

And, of course, the worst rationing is imposed on the 45 million people in the United States without insurance.

Rationing is far worse in the United States than in other countries. ... 40 percent of people in the United States said there has been a time when they did not fill a prescription because of cost -- twice the level of the next worst performing country. ...
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But in the aggregate, U.S. healthcare indicators are terrible, for worse than other industrialized countries -- all of which have national health plans.

With SiCKO heating up the debate, Business Week profiled the French health system, which is treated favorably in SiCKO. "To grasp how the French system works, think about Medicare for the elderly in the U.S., then expand that to encompass the entire population." But, notes Business Week: "the French system is more generous to its entire population than the U.S. is to its seniors."
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On top of which, French health expenditures amount to 10.7 percent of the national economy. In the United States, it is 16.5 percent.

It turns out that national health insurance is not just more humane, it is far, far more efficient, about which more in my next (and final) piece on SiCKO.