Quote:
Take the British/Canadian model that you all seem to be so fond of. Literally millions of people are stuck on waiting lists to get treated for life-threatening conditions. Hundreds of thousands of people every year are dropped from the lists because they have, quite simply, waited so long that they have grown too sick to be treated.
Here are some figures for waiting times (in days) for patients waiting for elective surgery by public hospitals in Australia in 2005 (the latest available report):
www.aihw.gov.au/hospitals/waitingtime_data.cfm
As you can see, the longest waiting periods are for Opthalmic surgery, at a little over 2 months. I myself had to wait 6 weeks to get in for gynaecological surgery (and it wasn't a life-threatening situation). My grandfather had to wait for a little over a year for a kidney transplant, largely because he has a rare blood type.
These examples and figures are hardly indicative of the situation you describe.