2scents
“I believe that the doctors, not the patients decide on what is an emergent procedure”
yes that is correct. shouldnt it be that way?
“once one is in the system they have to wait their turn.”
YEs if not emergent there is a delay. (again though les of a delay than those in the US without insurance) However this is to save costs.
For example Canada has less MRI machines than the the US (in 2005 5 per million people in Canada compard to 20 in the US. ) Obviously this helps keep costs down since not as many machines need to be maintained.
the flip side is fro (non-emergent ) MRI’s there is a delay.
If avoiding delay is so important then we can spend more and still have a single payer sytem the two arent mutually exclusive. Canada spends half of what we do and has better outcomes.
We can have a single payer system, spend more than Canada does to avoid dreaded delays for non-essential tests and likely still insure everybody at less the cost than we have today.
“I was involved and familiar with a few cases of which the patients were flown to the US from the UK for more advanced life saving treatments.”
Likewise, I was alos involved with the revers cases. See NYT article “The Growing Popularity of Having Surgery Overseas” 8/6/13