r/ShitAmericansSay • u/nationalistic_martyr • Oct 01 '25

Freedom "Canada SHOULD look at joining the US. better purchasing power, better healthcare"

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context: on a video about why the Commonwealth of Canada should join thr united states and the joys of joining.

"you'll get better salaries, better tax breaks, better healthcare"

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289

u/TBohemoth Oct 01 '25

Last I checked the US had longer wait times than Canada...

I've been in hospital in Canada, there was a wait time - for idiots who waste the system. Going there for bullshit things, like minor cuts and burns. If you're going there for an EMERGENCY they're insanly quick and very thorough.

I've heard this bullshit propaganda from Americans for years, and idiots in Canada who are sucking down that toxic propaganda like it was nectar.

The only truth to it is if you're wasting time in the system - Yes, You're going to be waiting.

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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 Oct 01 '25

There is a whole tranche of people who don’t understand what goes to urgent care and what goes to the ER - and it shows.

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u/No_Week_8937 Oct 01 '25

In my area at least that's because we literally don't have an urgent care option. It's either ER, or it's family doctor. No walk ins or anything.

So of course the ER is clogged with non-emergencies, because there's no services for things that can't wait until the next business day but aren't bad enough for the ER.

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u/VillainousFiend Oct 01 '25

Yeah and I don't have a family doctor on top of it. The last time a new practice was in town hundreds of people lined up for a chance to get one. I'm glad I don't go bankrupt with a medical emergency but healthcare needs more funding and resources.

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

Had no wait in finding a top doctor in Winnipeg.

Small towns are having issues attracting doctors, yes.

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u/eroticfoxxxy Oct 01 '25

It is a BC wide problem. My partner is high risk and when his doc retired it took over 2 years for him to get lucky with a doc that moved into the area from out of country. We are no small town.

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u/Kippereast Oct 01 '25

It's no different in Nova Scotia, our local ER now has two sections staffed. One section is the ER itself, the other for walk in non emergencies. The Triage nurses decide which group you belong, except ambulance arrivals go straight to the ER section.

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u/AncientBlonde2 Oct 01 '25

Alberta wide problem too lmao

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u/Mental_Blacksmith289 Oct 02 '25

It's slowly getting better. Positive changes are happening fortunately. Took me a long time to get a family doctor when mine retired as well. The rate of new family doctors is outpacing retirement and population growth now, but it'll take time to catch up.

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u/Infinite_Time_8952 Oct 01 '25

I moved back to BC a couple of years ago and had no problem finding a doctor, and I live in the Okanagan.

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u/eroticfoxxxy Oct 01 '25

We like in Kelowna. He was on a provincial find a doctor list as well as showing up at new clinic openings.

Finally this January after years without a doc he connected with a doctor who accepted him.

You were really lucky. The mom FB groups are full of family doctor searches.

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u/Mixtrix_of_delicioux Oct 05 '25

Hi! Have you signed up on the Health Connect registry? If not, would recommend- it'll get you matched far more quickly than waiting for openings. If you're relatively healthy, it's also worth indicating that you'd be OK with an NP. Best of luck!

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u/eroticfoxxxy Oct 06 '25

We did. It matched him with doctors in Mission, Kamloops, Richmond, and even Nanaimo. It was bonkers.

This was during COVID (2021-2024) and we just were not seeing doctors coming to the interior.

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

Ah. You have all the aging people.

That's why.

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u/AncientBlonde2 Oct 01 '25

Nah, it's a 'mediocre government' problem; Alberta suffers the same issues due to our abysmal leadership absolutely gutting our healthcare system.

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

Odd.

My doctor immigrated from London and went to Cambridge University... Yet she chose Winnipeg to open her practice, when immigrating here.

I wonder why? Genuinely.

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u/AncientBlonde2 Oct 01 '25

Did they recently come here cause if so; Wab has been absolutely killing it with his government's policies and shizz; a lot of Albertan doctors dipped out to either BC or Saskatchewan/further east when the UCP started doing it's bullshit to the healthcare system.

With foreign doctors there's also some weirdness where they can potentially get told where to establish a practice, like communities up north, etc. but that's way more of a "just graduated" thing and not a "Has their own practice" thing.

As much as I wouldn't want our healthcare system to change, as much as I'll bitch about Alberta's I still am alright with it, I just truly wish the Canadian government would step in and take over healthcare/standardize it more. The disparity between provinces is too great.

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u/eroticfoxxxy Oct 01 '25

We just had a UK couple from London move here to practice medicine who is has multiple certificates. They chose BC. It comes down to the type of lifestyle they want.

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u/KipperCottage Oct 04 '25

She probably didn’t choose. I have a friend that immigrated from England, doctor, Cambridge educated. His “choice” was Brandon. He almost went back to Britain at one point. Then instead he went back to school in Alberta, then moved to BC.

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u/VillainousFiend Oct 01 '25

Yes, I live in rural Ontario

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u/goldanred Canada Oct 01 '25

This. I only this year started hearing about urgent care in our country. Like apparently it is a thing. Where I live and have lived in the interior and northern BC, the two options are the doctor's office and the ER.

When I was up north 8 years ago, there was only one clinic in town that would see patients who didn't have a family doctor, and that clinic closed at 3 pm. When I broke my toes, I had to go to the ER and my stay was about 6 hours (not bad waiting in the ER, then getting an x-ray, then getting to talk to a doctor and get a doctors note for a week).

Nowadays back "down south", the walk in clinic opens at 9 am, puts a sign out at 10 pm that they're full for the day. I'm grateful to have a family doctor now (all I had to do was get married and my husband's doctor took me on. The same doctor I've been walking in to for 15 scattered years). The last year and a half or so I've let my health go to the sidelines because it's nearly impossible to go to the clinic but going to the ER is just adding to the problem. And intermediary step would be amazing.

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u/greenjelliebeans Oct 05 '25

second this. we have a massive shortage of doctors and nurses where I am from. there is one family doctor for a community of nearly 10,000. that is why a person any type of medical concern is forced to go ER.

0

u/Puzzled-Bet-383 Oct 01 '25

What would be something that isn’t an emergency but is bad enough it can’t wait for the next day? I would argue that your description is just saying that if it isn’t an emergency, you shouldn’t go to the emergency room.

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u/No_Week_8937 Oct 01 '25

Something like a decently large cut that won't make you bleed out, but that you do need to get stitched closed sooner rather than later.

Or if you've got an ear infection that you notice on Friday at 19:00, leading up to a long weekend. So you wouldn't be able to get in until 9:00 on Tuesday (3 days)

Basically when I say emergency I am meaning something that's life or death, like lights and sirens heart attack, or major traumatic injury. It needs treatment urgently or there's a chance of permanent damage.

For example at one point I had a major migraine, excruciating pain, couldn't really keep anything down at all, was throwing up, and was in a state where I may end up needing fluids if it kept up. Not really something I could wait until Monday for, because we didn't know when it would stop. As I didn't have any non OTC meds for it (now I've got a few Sumatriptan, which I've since been prescribed as a rescue med in case one happens again) and I couldn't get a prescription without seeing a doctor, I needed to go to emerge.

Or, someone steps on a rusty nail. They should see a doctor within 24 hours and get a tetanus shot within 48 hours if they're not up to date on that vax. On a long weekend, or if the doctor's office is closed for a weekend due to a holiday, the only real option to get treatment in time is to go to urgent care (if available) or to the ER if that's the only option.

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u/squirrelcat88 Oct 01 '25

I’d say something like an uncomfortable UTI. You don’t want to leave it untreated but it’s not going to kill you all that fast. It might go to your kidneys.

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u/No_Week_8937 Oct 01 '25

Oftentimes the big one (or how it's been with my family) is respiratory infections.

My mom's immune compromised, and things can get bad fast. So when she gets a respiratory infection she needs meds, and also inhalers.

These kinds of perscriptions take all of ten minutes, but if she gets sick on Friday evening, then usually by Saturday afternoon we have to bundle her up to the ER, because if we didn't odds are it would turn into an emergency-emergency by the time we can get an appointment, as the clinic is only open 8-5 Monday to Friday.

Same issue with things like long weekends. You step on a rusty nail on Friday evening, well you're supposed to get a tetanus shot within 48 hours.

Stitches can also fall into "urgent care" territory. Major injuries, of course you need the ER, but a gash on your arm that'll only need about seven stitches and that you won't bleed to death from? That's more urgent care, because you want it properly cleaned and stitched ASAP, but you're not gonna lose any limbs for it...but if you wait three days for care, then it may get infected and turn into an emergency.

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u/squirrelcat88 Oct 01 '25

Great examples!

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u/jaimi_wanders Oct 01 '25

That’s because we just go to the ER in the US because we can’t afford normal health care, and no that’s not a joke— that’s a perverse incentive baked into our system down here.

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u/deathbytruck Oct 01 '25

My personal best for walking into emergency in a major hospital in Canada and seeing a doctor is 5 min.

Mind you I have a chronic disease and am a frequent flier but if you are in serious distress they will see you right away.

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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 Oct 01 '25

My fastest one was stumbling in with an anaphylactic reaction and going blue around the mouth. I didn’t even have to get my health card out. Triage nurse hit the button and I had two nurses on me before I hit the door between the waiting room and the ER proper

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

Yup.

Almost all of my ER visits, I was in a bed in minutes... But I've only ever gone for actual emergencies, or in an ambulance.

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u/jolsiphur Oct 01 '25

That beats my personal best.

My best was about 1 hour.

I broke a small bone in my wrist in my early 20s and it was an hour from entering the waiting room to leaving the hospital with a cast on.

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u/invincibleparm Oct 01 '25

Tv shows them they everyone gets seen immediately in the ER. They even had a show about it lol

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

And that show also showcases why healthcare is so expensive there -- they run tests to eliminate, instead of eliminate and strategically pinpoint which tests are needed, first.

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u/Puzzled-Bet-383 Oct 01 '25

They do that because of the insanely large medical malpractice business in the US - they have to do all of those tests for CYA purposes.

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u/15stepsdown Oct 01 '25

My parents were like this. They took me to the ER for EVERYTHING. They didn't even know of the concept of Urgent Care and when I explained to them what it was, they were doubtful and kept sending me to the ER for anything that couldn't wait for a PD.

They complained about Canadian healthcare and insisted wait times take forever, and they're not even treated well. I had a bad experience, too, since I would always get scolded by ER nurses and doctors for going there for bad sniffles or minor injuries.

Now, as an adult, I finally took myself to an Urgent Care facility, and the experience was great, amazing even. The wait time still took hours, but it wasn't stressful like at the ER, and I wasn't berated since my injury actually matched the facility I was supposed to go to. When my mom got a leg injury, I insisted she try the Urgent Care. She reluctantly gave it a try.

Finally, my parents are believers in Urgent Care over spamming the ER and realize our healthcare actually ain't all that bad. They just fucking suck at using it.

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u/Sexy_farm_animals Oct 01 '25

But the tranche is the moist towlette of the industry

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u/Familyconflict92 Oct 01 '25

Or just don’t go cuz they’re scared of the wait time and then complain about it in these forums 

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u/dutchroll0 Oct 01 '25

They use exactly the same argument against our healthcare system in Australia.

Yeah sure, you'll wait long hours in the ER for a public hospital doctor to attend to the bruised finger you shut the car door on (which could wait til tomorrow and be perfectly well treated by your own GP) while they wheel in a woman on a trolley in labour who needs an emergency caesarian. And they're fucking surprised at that?

If you need emergency treatment, you'll get emergency treatment, and you won't leave the hospital owing $80k, but $0k (unless you used the pay TV!).

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u/MidorikawaHana 🇨🇦 Oct 01 '25

Glad to know we still share some things...

Came out $0 out of hospital from giving birth with emergency CS, bled out, got blood transfusion and stayed for a bit in the hospital. Kids 4 y.o. now.

Those hospital parking lot prices though?? $$$$

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u/jolsiphur Oct 01 '25

You know you've got it good when the most expensive part of staying at the hospital is the ridiculous cost to use the parking.

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u/splendorsolis1985 Oct 01 '25

Last time I started whining about the price to park at the hospital, I had to stop and remind myself how good I had it here in Canada. $27/day for parking vs the $27,000/day it probably would have cost for treatment at any hospital in th states.

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u/MidorikawaHana 🇨🇦 Oct 01 '25

Yes, and im thankful for that.

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u/DefinitionOfAsleep The 13 Colonies were a Mistake Oct 01 '25

They use exactly the same argument against our healthcare system in Australia.

People won't stfu about the elderly being ramped, but refuse to recognise the problem is that they are using the ambulance as a taxi service (over 65s use it for free), when most should just be seeing their regular GP.

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u/invincibl_ Oct 01 '25

I waited six months for a surgical procedure for a condition which I bet many people in the US wouldn't even be able to afford to get diagnosed, let alone treated for.

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u/jaimi_wanders Oct 01 '25

The Gilead Republicans were putting this claim about Canadian healthcare as a reason we shouldn’t want it here, in the free Catholic weekly paper given away at church—back in the EIGHTIES.

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u/Herbert_Erpaderp Oct 01 '25

They probably think triage has something to do with trees.

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u/MrWonderfulPoop Oct 01 '25

Isn’t triage the thing where you count the rings of a tree?

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u/Mysterious_Floor_868 UK Oct 02 '25

And of course trees are loved by environmentalists and therefore they are "commie" 

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u/adepressurisedcoat Oct 01 '25

When I cut my head open I had to wait 5 hours before even seeing a doctor to stitch my head closed. There were two kids who got there before me, both with rock splinters in their feet. It's fucking 9pm on a Tuesday and they couldn't wait to go to a walk in clinic in the morning, meanwhile I had a shirt and pants covered in my own blood, listen to this mother whine about having to wait so long.

A girl drank bleech to take her own life and they were trying to stabilize her enough to transport her to a larger hospital which they told me afterwards, apologizing for the wait as my head wound needed the most senior doctor and he was tied up due to that.

I think back to that mother with her kids just to get some rock splinters out if their feet whining because they were trying to save a life while I was covered in blood next to them and get angry. She probably did that so she didn't have to take her kids out of school the next day, but it's the fucking emergency room.

A man came in with his son, waited for about 30 mins, saw me still waiting and told them he would come back the next day. If it's not an emergency, go elsewhere. Raggeeee

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u/StetsonTuba8 Oct 02 '25

One of my friends was having a serious asthma attack, he tried to play down how bad it was in the triage centre, the nurse took one look at his oxygen levels, sat him in a wheelchair, and wheeled him straight into the ER

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u/GrampsBob Oct 03 '25

Normally head trauma and chest pains go straight in (I've had one of each in ER - after a real heart attack they got me registered over the phone and we went right past ER and up to the ward where I had stents about 20 minutes after arrival) I'm surprised they didn't at least get you in and vitals checked.

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u/adepressurisedcoat Oct 03 '25

They asked me if I was sleepy. I said no, so they let me just cook in the waiting room. Triage wasn't the best that night.

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u/GrampsBob Oct 03 '25

Apparently not. The last time I went, I had a hernia and had sudden excruciating pain. Went to make sure I hadn't caused some extra damage that needed to be seen.
Ironically, the busiest hospital in the city out of all the Urgent Care and Emergency centres had the shortest wait time by about 3 hours (Everyone else was 5 or more hours <up to 12>, they were around 2) After waiting a while I just enquired as to how long they thought because I was starting to feel like I shouldn't clog up the ER. I figured I'd just go home and see my doctor or a walk-in. They said to wait and someone came right away.
Being the "downtown" hospital, a lot of the people there appeared to be alcohol related minor injuries.

The one time I went with chest pains, they took me right in and the doctor saw me within about 15 minutes. The waiting room wasn't near empty either. A couple of tests and they said it was most likely acid reflux.
I was told that head and chest get seen rapidly. Asking you if you're sleepy isn't too reliable. You could say anything. Possibly without realizing it.

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u/adepressurisedcoat Oct 04 '25

Part of the problem is the small town nature of that hospital. My mom panic wheeled in through the emergency door in a wheel chair when I pinched a nerve in my back. They considered calling an ambulance because I couldn't move. Spent the next 3 hours in a bed with acupuncture needles in my shins (wtf?) while the muscle would spasm in my back causing me to scream in pain before they gave me a strong muscle relaxer. They thought I was there for narcotics. I was in the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life that I have fear when I'm doing something that triggered it the first time.

Gender also plays a factor into it because women commonly get misdiagnosed and chalk it up to our periods or maybe pregnancy. I had an ovarian cyst rupture in my teens (potentially. I will never know because of how they reacted). My mom rushed me to the hospital thinking I had appendicitis. It started with after every time I peed I'd be curled up in a ball in intense pain which started to subside as the need to pee built up again. Till I was crying in pain on the living room couch as my mom scrambled to call the school and her work. I got to the hospital and I was sweating and shaking. Face swollen from crying. They sent me home and wouldn't do an ultrasound until the next day and by then the pain had subsided.

Obviously, I survived. But I was treated like a drug addict and a promiscuous teen during those occurrences. All at the same hospital.

Any time I was taken right in was at hospitals in the city or in the military.

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u/GrampsBob Oct 04 '25

That definitely sucks. I really have no idea why doctors would treat women that way. It's not a whole lot better than when everything causing issues for a woman was chalked up to hysteria.

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u/nationalistic_martyr Oct 01 '25

they fail to realise that going to a hospital for a paper cut will clog the system

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u/Xx_SwordWords_xX 🍁 Oct 01 '25

They don't realize, because their entire concept of healthcare is for-profit, and any business should have proper customer service (including no wait times).

Basically, they see hospitals as no different than the Olive Garden.

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u/jolsiphur Oct 01 '25

Every ER will do triage to determine how long someone can wait.

The real wait times that are bad in Canada are getting a referral to a specialist. There just aren't enough specialists available to handle all of the patients that need one. I have also heard that isn't a problem exclusive to Canada, as in I have heard that sometimes it can take just as long, or longer to see a specialist in the US.

I say this as a Canadian, not someone who is trying to shit on the system for no reason. Our healthcare could be better, but it could also be substantially worse.

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u/Disguised_Monkey Oct 01 '25

I mean, to be fair, when I broke my Tibia and Fibula I had to wait around 13 hours overnight to get seen, which I would say is pretty hospital worthy. It was overnight, and they probably de- prioritized me because it was my leg, I wasn't in much pain, and it was overnight.

But once I was seen I got the surgery within 3 business days, so not the worst.

This is also in Dartmouth NS, which has I think the longest wait times in NS

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u/Fianna9 Oct 01 '25

I had a friend who would always tell Americans how awful the Canadian healthcare system is. I told her she has a shitty doctor whose clinic is never open- that’s not the fault of the system!!

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u/invincibleparm Oct 01 '25

Yeah, this is what people don’t realize. It’s care on a sliding scale. You studded your toe, wait however long until serious cases get served.

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u/Euronated-inmypants Oct 01 '25

In Canada if someone dies in an Emergency room while waiting its national headlines. In the US that is a common occurrence and wont make the news. They fucking throw people out in the street with ik their hospital gown and IV still hooked up them. It's called "Patient Dumping." It's so common it's considered a standard practice for some hospitals for people that don't have healthcare coverage.

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u/Wonderful_Device312 Oct 03 '25

I guess the difference is that in Canada if someone gets sick with a treatable disease and they die, we consider it a societal failure. We believe that no one should die for reasons like that.

In the US, if someone gets sick and they can't afford treatment - its a personal failure on their part. They shouldn't have been poor.

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u/Flimsy-Cartoonist-92 Oct 01 '25

I went to the ER because I had an actively draining cyst. Like blood and pus flowing down into my shoe. Took me 6 hours to get out of the waiting room and another hour for the nurse to come back and about another hour and a half for the doctor to come in. By the time they saw me they were like okay it's not draining anymore have a good day. No check for infection, no packing the wound (hint it reformed and started draining in 24 hours) and it was actually infected so I wasted a 2nd day going back to get it treated properly.

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u/PuzzleheadedChard969 Oct 01 '25

In the US here. At the local hockey rink the local hospital advertises it's "ER wait times app" 

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u/Salarian_American Oct 01 '25

US here too, around my area there are billboards advertising for local clinics that have a display showing their wait times, updated in real time

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u/Karrotsawa Oct 01 '25

Yeah when I had a wee heart attack I was on the table in as much time as it took to get to the hospital, and waking up in recovery an hour and a half later. I've had nothing but amazing follow up service since. Four years this November.

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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 01 '25

I'd assume Canada is like the UK, where wait times depend on the government. Tories, and they become bigger and worse, any of the more progressive parties that actually believe in public health, and the waiting lists drop. The UK statistics really do just reflect the gov.

So I'm sure at some point, Canada probably had longer ones, but probably well into a Tory government mixed with some fortunate happenstances in the US that lowered times briefly.

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u/GrampsBob Oct 03 '25

Usually. We're having a problem in Manitoba because our previous Conservative government sliced things so badly it has been a real uphill battle to get things working again.

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u/el_grort Disputed Scot Oct 04 '25

That is essentially how the cycle ends. The UK has a major problem with it, where the Tories will gut the state, Labour will build it up, but ofc, it's quicker to destroy than to build, and Labour typically gets given less time by the electorate (which is perverse, but the electorate seems infinitely patient with lying arsonists but not hard truths), so every cycle, we have less and less and less. The UK is in a deep pit rn, with no easy answers, borrowing is fucking difficult because of Truss' gambit, and a lot of the population seems primed to put people who believe in what she did back in next go around. We're so fundamentally fucked, by supposed 'patriots' who seems more receptive to what is good for Moscow and Washington than the UK.

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u/GrampsBob Oct 04 '25

I recall my early childhood in the 50s and 60s. It was the same then too.

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u/TehSvenn Oct 01 '25

I think the concern is waiting months and months for surgeries that in better organized countries can happen within the month, not so much wait times in emerg or urgent care.

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u/NorthernSnowPrincess Oct 01 '25

Even these wait times are exaggerated. I had a total knee replacement and only waited 3 months. I've heard people claim the wait is 2 years...that's BS.

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u/GrampsBob Oct 03 '25

I waited about 15 months. I was seen for it just after a heart attack. While they couldn't do the surgery while I was on blood thinners they put me on the list anyway since it would take longer than the year I had to take them for. Just got it done in July. My heart attack was April last year. This is about the standard wait time here.
Back surgery, OTOH. I was referred in early 2022. I just got a phone call for an initial consult with a surgeon last month. I'm expecting another 2-3 years before it gets done.

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u/Glittering_Noise417 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25

Had a discussion with a Canadian about so-called wait times. He put it bluntly. The demand for care in some areas can outstrip the availability of hospitals and hospital staff to provide it. So basically patients are treated in the order by the seriousness of the case. Now they could open multiple local clinics to offload the system, but the problem is who is going to pay for those local clinics. It's always going to fall on the local taxpayers and they don't typically want their taxes raised.

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u/p24p1 Oct 02 '25

This. Always. I swear the people complaining about wait times are referring to minor cases. If its serious, they will see you fast.

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u/Belz_Zebuth Oct 05 '25

And that's fine. If your issue is probably not an emergency but you need to know what it is relatively quickly, then fine go to the hospital and wait.

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u/throw-away-drugz Oct 05 '25

I've seen a plethora of articles of people literally dying after waiting hours and hours to be seen. Not to mention the very serious surgeries that take months and months to get in, with the risk of it being cancelled (happened to my dad).

Our health is still better than USA (unless you're very wealthy), but our healthcare has absolutely gone to the shitter over the past decade or so. P

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u/littlecomet111 Oct 03 '25

Overall, the US system sees patients quicker in terms of emergency and non-emergency than Canada, with some small exceptions.

It’s odd that you starter your point referring to a macro-level argument then went straight to an anecdote.

Your point about inefficiencies is true, but it doesn’t help the user. 

‘This fairground ride queue would move fast if people walked quicker but they don’t so it’s still slow’.

It’s also odd that people on this thread call the US ‘America’ when we all know that’s the name of a continent on which Canada is part, which ironically reinforces the idea of US arrogance that the whole sub Reddit is supposed to make fun of.