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I live in the U.S. and do not have national health care, but I do have insurance (through my small business). To see the orthopedist for my back, I had to wait 6 weeks and to see the neurologist, I had to wait 7.5 weeks. To see my primary care, I only need to wait 1 to 1.5 weeks.
Sparrow talks about appalling treatment, but I wonder whether that is the result of the NHS or simply the quality of the doctors. Even in the U.S., where care is fee-for-service based, the quality of care ranges from dismal to exceptionally great. Its the luck of the draw on the physician.
Also worth noting: One of the arguments in U.S. against national health care is that patients will lack choice. But for those of us who do have health insurance, what choice do we really have? To afford the insurance for my wife and I, I had to choose HMO or EPO care. In both cases, we can only go to doctors preapproved by the insurance carrier, which means doctors who have agreed to accept the amount of money the insurer is willing to pay for a service. It is true that we could abandon insurance altogether and simply pay everything out of pocket, but that's not realistic. So although we don't have national health care limitations, we have the same limitations, just ones imposed by an insurance company and we don't get immediate access to doctors.
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