Is government the reason of waiting time especially in universal Healthcare system?

The people in the right wing have argued that government involvement in Healthcare System will increase waiting time to access care. Is this true or is is a tricky assessment? Let’s look at what waiting time is.

What is waiting time? Waiting time is the period when service / action is demanded and when it eventually happens. So waiting time is a function of demand and supply, if demand is disproportionately more than supply there will be waiting time.

So waiting time can occur outside of government, let’s explore that. You wait for your table to available at a good restaurant because they have more people in the restaurant than the number of tables. You wait on the line at the grocery store to check out your grocery. To cut short the waiting time in a store or a bar they get more people to attend to demands.

El Celler de Can Roca restaurant in Spain has a five month waiting time for a table and it is not government run while some restaurants have 30mins waiting time.

Managing waiting time:

• Increase supply: Increase service provision to match demand. Look at it as Amazon hiring temporary staff to match demand during peak seasons.
• Scale price upwards: make service price so high that only a few can afford it. The American Healthcare System falls in this category.
• Make limited service exclusive for a selected few: some social clubs fall under this category.

What is Universal Healthcare System: Is it a Healthcare system that ensures that everyone is covered and this can be achieved by

• Have a free access to healthcare, paid through taxes.
• Mandate everyone to Healthcare insurance.

Universal Healthcare System and waiting time:

When everyone is guaranteed healthcare there will be an increase in demand, at anytime, as service is cheaper. The waiting time will be longer as compared to when it was expensive. This has absolutely nothing to do with government.

You still see waiting time when you have just few specialized surgeons in the world…people will have to wait up couple of years as these few doctors fly around to world to treat people.

Announcement of free eye tests from a private clinic will increase their waiting time as a lot of people will take advantage of that opportunity to visit.

Government makes policy to cover everyone, that will suddenly make waiting time to spike…increasing the number of healthcare workers will bring down this spike. People are made to wait a longer time for elective procedures or non emergency issue in both Universal Healthcare System and Non Universal Healthcare System.

In conclusion, it is misleading to say government is the cause of waiting time in Universal Healthcare System.