What do the hospitals in the states look like? Like my partner vomited blood this yesterday morning and the clinic he went to directed him to urgent care, but he had to wait 14 hours in the waiting room and would've had to wait at least three more hours on top of that to be seen. How long would he have to wait at an American hospital, and how much would it cost with the average insurance provider?
It depends.
In a really rural area with just a small clinic, you get told to go to the big city for proper care if it's bad. If you're rural and far away enough, they can actually transport you via helicopter if you're in critical condition. I don't know about airlifts, but most insurance covers ambulance rides.
In big cities, the wait time depends on how busy they are and how banged up you are. It also depends on staffing. If it's the middle of the day, there's a light caseload at that time, everyone's on duty, and you have a
maybe broken arm, you'll see a doctor within an hour. Two hours tops, if they have a lot of inpatient stuff to deal with. At busy times, or if staff is short, you might wait between 2 and 4 hours to see a doctor. In major areas with lots of assholes going to the ER for a cough (illegals), you could be waiting even longer if your condition isn't life-threatening. I once waited 5 hours to get some stitches because of this - and that was before urgent care centers were everywhere (which is where you should go for stitches if your cut isn't severe).
If you're vomiting a little blood, as a treat, they'll take a little longer. If it's a lot, they will triage you right away and prioritize you because GI bleeds are life-threatening. If you come in complaining of chest pain and you are worried about a heart attack, you go right in. If you arrive in an ambulance, you get a room right away, which is something that hypochondriacs and psychos exploit. Basically, how badly you're fucked up is correlated to how quickly you'll receive care.
Insurance is a whole other ballgame. I once had to go inpatient for 4 days and all I paid was $1,000. Another time, I had a scare that turned out to be nothing and I paid something like $1,300 all said and done because different doctors, labs, and hospitals do things differently. The hospital might accept your insurance, but the doctor doesn't accept any and you get a bill from them directly. Some hospitals cut you a break, others won't. I once had a lab try to bill me thousands for a routine panel and I spent 6 months battling them until the feds basically told my insurance to cover it. It's inconsistent. At the end of the day, though, most people don't go in medical debt unless they are really irresponsible (constantly going to the ER for simple shit) or really unlucky (they get in a critical accident, don't have proper insurance, and the hospital fucks them). Most hospitals will try and work with you, though.
I summon
@Your Girlfriend's Dad for this topic and to correct me if I'm wrong. Canada's problem, AFAIK, is they simply don't have enough staff. They have to ration care a lot more.
