[Quiet Man Cometh]

I'll grant you that free health care can generate the wait in part, but we're still going back to the same issue; more people in the system, and in the case of several hospitals and such in Canada, more people than the system can currently handle, and suddenly turning it into a paying system won't help, except to re-arrange wait lists that already exist.

I think it's also important to note that wait has to do with severity of problem. I still see people who forget this and it drives me nuts. Every time I hear someone mutter "I was here first" I want to slap them. Take your cousin with the panic attack. In all likelihood, she would be admitted and watched, but nothing would be done while there were other people with more serious cases in the wait room, unless there was some immediate danger.

Ugh. The health care debates I see on TV always make me annoyed because it always seems to bounce around on assumptions and comparing things that probably shouldn't be compared. Are walk-in clinics factored in when people argue about wait times to see a doctor? True, if I make an appointment with my (busy) doctor, it would probably be take a few days, but if I wanted to see a doctor right now, I could do it at a clinic ten minutes from here.

There's also no small amount of philosophy that comes to play in arguments over health care as well. Is health care a right or a privilege? If the majority of people are okay with health care coverage being a perk that people can buy into if they like, then fine, but accept that there will always be people that want it but can't afford it. If everyone in a country should have a right to come degree of free health care coverage, then fine, but be prepared for the impact that will have on the system.