Dangerously long waits for some medical procedures under universal healthcare?

Question

Is that a frequent problem or a rare anecdotal one, or what?

Answer 1

No, it's a common problem under the universal health care provision.

I lived overseas for more than half of my adult life and was covered under various universal health care systems. The great thing is the little stuff is covered just fine, colds, flu, etc. Glasses and dental came out of my pocket.

Now being that you have to have your vision tested every single year and your teeth done twice a year, that is far more expensive for me than the getting sick once in a while and getting a prescription for antibiotics.

However, when it came time for the big stuff, the lines for the specialists was unbelievable. My father had to wait 19 months for cataract surgery and he had to wait a further nine months for a series of heart exams and tests to see what was going on with his ticker.

He eventually came back to the States and was seen and taken care of very quickly, and Medicare picked up most of the entire tab.

Even France, who is listed by the World Health Organization as the 'very best' health care providers in the world are urging its citizens to buy supplemental insurance through private providers as the government can no longer pick up the tab for everybody and everything. That's according to France's immigrate to France information site.

Answer 2

Ive always read about the waits and have had a few friends that were from Canada that agreed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3423159.stm
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/06/30/european_health_care_not_moores_utopia/

One other thing, it seems that most countries with socialized healthcare seem to have a private healthcare system as well. My question is, why?