Hi, everybody. Cheryl Ackison here. I hope you enjoy this special from the archives edition of Full Measure After Hours.

Hi, everybody, Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure after Hours. Today, what's behind the long wait

times to see the doctor? I'll bet a whole lot of you listening have experienced what we're

talking about today, excruciatingly long wait times to see the doctor for maybe a basic checkup, maybe to establish a new

doctor, or even for important surgery. What exactly is going on? After Obamacare, we were promised

everything with our health care system would be better. And while it's true that more people now have

insurance coverage as a result,

America's total health bill has skyrocketed. We are paying more in premiums, but also through

invisible costs such as taxpayers paying for all the people getting subsidized on insurance. Yes, some of them

are paying a reduced amount, but we're all picking up

the slack. We also have to pay more for Medicare and Medicaid. That's insurance for the poor

and the elderly. So it may seem like things are somewhat affordable in the moment because when you

pay out of pocket, that amount may not seem

too bad. But we're getting hit in a way that's bigger than ever when you're talking about

total costs that we're covering in other ways. And in the meantime, with more people having insurance

and us paying more than ever, people are getting sicker and sicker with all kinds of chronic disorders.

More people are trying to see the doctor and finding they can't get a timely appointment.

It's reached crisis proportions in some cities.

Here are a few stats, according to surveys.

The average wait time for new patient appointments in 2004, way back then it was widely considered

unacceptably long, it was just over four weeks. But by 2022, the last date they have figures for this,

the weight had grown a full week longer. Now, the average weight for a new patient appointment

...