Actually, as someone who is FAR from being wealthy, I'd really like to see that kind of system.
Sure, he gats treatment faster, but so do I, because since he went over to the pay clinic, he's out of the line I'm wating in, and now I have to wait less too. He's doing me a favor.
Not to mention, his tax dollars are still in the public system, even though he is choosing to pay extra NOT to utilize them. That means the public system has more resources per person that they are treating.
I don’t know how ‘typical’ I might be, but:
I am a senior citizen with a modest – but possibly better than many – pension and a well paid part-time job;
I have a comfortable ‘net worth’ but some of it is tied up in e.g. my home. Consequentially I have the ‘luxury’ of choices – I can spend several hundred, even several thousand dollars as I see fit. My friend, a well paid professional, and I can spend New Year’s Eve in London – paying several hundred dollars per night, for several nights, for our room, because I (we) choose to do so, etc;
I am, generally, fit and healthy but I have a few problems – one of which might be quite serious if left unattended.
I have, fairly routinely, for the past several years taken advantage of the existing two-tiered Medicare system. When my family physician gets a test result she doesn’t quite like I take myself to a nearby American city where waiting times for new, high-tech diagnostic tests and consultations with skilled specialists are measured in hours or days, not weeks or, more often, months. Each trip, including overnight in a hotel, meals, tests, specialist’s consultation fees, etc, etc cost me less than $(CA)2,500.00 – a price I am willing and able to pay for my own peace of mind. If my test results were bad I would jump the queue here in Canada, seeing a specialist surgeon in a day or so because, where I live, the bottleneck is in diagnostic testing not surgeons or operating rooms for those who are known to need immediate care.
Just recently I went to another, neighbouring province for a test for a minor knee injury. I complained that the orthopaedic specialist should not need a fancy scan to diagnose a knee problem but I accept that times have changed and some (most?) hospitals will not permit ‘exploratory’ orthopaedic surgery – they insist that the patient has had a highly reliable, ‘non intrusive’ diagnosis before surgery. I paid $750.00 plus train fare and meals, all-in-all less than $1,000.00, and I jumped the queue – I and my AMEX Platinum card. I will still have to wait a few weeks for surgery because operating rooms in my city sit empty for ¾ of each day – 4/5 of each week because there is no money for nurses and other essential staff, because too much of the hospital’s personnel budget is wasted on low skill, low value, readily available support staff.
I will continue to buy better healthcare than is available to most Canadians because I can and I choose to do so. I will not wait in line if I do not choose to do so. I understand that when I jump the queue I might, probably do push someone in greater medical ‘need’ farther back, father away from the care needed. That really is a shame.
But, big BUT, I’m afraid, I do not shorten the queues for others. The physicians, radiologists, technicians etc who treat me, privately, do not work in the public system – they are unavailable to help reduce the queues because they have either left the country or they have left the ‘public system. At best, some of my actions (tests in another province) simply, and unfairly, shuffle the queue.