Physician Wait Times and Universal Health Care

Canadians often complain about the wait time to see a doctor or health care specialist. This is due to Canada’s universal healthcare system where all persons are entitled to care.

It would appear that the move to universal healthcare in the US by the Obama administration will bring more “Canadian like problems” to the US healthcare system.

Long wait times in Boston may be driven in part by the healthcare reform initiative that was put in place in Massachusetts in 2006. The initiative succeeded in covering many of the state’s uninsured patients. However, it has been reported that many patients in Massachusetts are encountering difficulty in accessing physicians. Survey results support these reports. Long appointment wait times in Boston also may signal what could happen nationally in the event that access to healthcare is expanded through healthcare reform. Increased demand resulting from improved access to care for approximately 47 million uninsured people can be expected to extend doctor appointment wait times in many markets.

See more at Carpe Diem here.

This entry was posted on 9. August 2009 at 16:49 and is filed under Healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.