The private cost of public queues

In December 2010, the Fraser Institute released its twentieth annual measurement of waiting times for medically necessary treatments in Canada (Barua et al., 2010). This most recent measurement shows that the national median waiting time from specialist appointment to treatment increased from 8.0 weeks in 2009 to 9.3 weeks in 2010. But the measurement of waiting times, or the examination of the absolute delay Canadians must endure in order to receive medically necessary care, is only one way of looking at the burden of waiting for health care. We can also calculate the privately borne cost of waiting: the value of the time that is lost while waiting for treatment.1