About Those Insufferable Wait Times...

Hurry up and wait!

Conservatives / Tea Partiers love to talk about how the "free market" is the answer to everything.  Our fee-for-service healthcare system is the envy of the world because there are no wait times!  Well, guess what? If you're a new oncology patient in America, you're fucked.

Newly diagnosed cancer patients frequently face hurdles in obtaining an appointment for care with an oncologist, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennnsylvania that will be presented Saturday, June 4 at the 2011 annual meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology (Abstract #6128). Even callers with private health insurance had difficulty scheduling an appointment, with just 22 percent of them obtaining a slot, compared to 29 percent of uninsured patients and 17 percent of patients on Medicaid, according to results of a study in which research assistants posed as patients seeking an initial evaluation.

Between this and the closing of urban Emergency Rooms, our healthcare system is only going to get worse under our Galtian overlords.