But...there will be wait times!

As Tom Petty taught us all in the 1980s, Waiting is the Hardest Part. That’s even more true when you’re waiting to see a doctor for a problem that needs attention. Anyone who has ever tried to secure a doctor’s appointment in this country knows that a) it’s going to be harder than scoring Taylor Swift tickets and b) you are going to face serious delays before you get your care. In this episode, we’re getting into the nitty gritty of wait times in the U.S. – how bad are they, how do we compare to the rest of the developed world, and why are wait times the right’s favorite scare tactic when it comes to Medicare for All? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3QJH4eFXY4 The narrative attacking Medicare for All – you’ll NEVER get to see a doctor and everything will be like communist Russia… or, god forbid, CANADA! This is one of the top scare tactics used by opponents of Medicare for All, but their claims about wait times aren’t always based on the truth. What our opponents seem to forget is that we have wait times in the US too. Ben, Gillian and our members all have stories about wait times, including Gillian’s story of being told “call back next year,” and Ben’s condition that worsened and turned permanent because he couldn’t get an appointment for for months for an urgent matter. We heard from members with horrific conditions that prevented them from working or even do normal day to day activities, but had to wait months or even over a year for care. In our broken system, getting a wait time is actually a privilege; if you don’t have insurance or can’t afford the copay, you won’t even get to make that far-off appointment you need. This is another reason we often end up in the emergency department. In some cases there is no other way to get medical attention for an urgent or emergent condition. The reality of how our wait times compare to other countries’ is challenging to capture because the U.S. is one of the only developed countries that DOES NOT TRACK WAIT TIMES. Reporting is not required. In other countries, they track wait times for every service, and in some cases you can look up average wait times online for visits, procedures and hospitals. Research on countries with national healthcare plans shows that wait times vary dramatically, from country to country. We often don’t even talk about the most critical wait times, which are ambulance response times and processing patients in emergency departments. It’s hard to find good comparative data on this, but these are major weaknesses of the U.S. healthcare system. Finally, there is evidence of a major equity component here. Poor people and BIPOC have longer wait times for all ser