So what is the wait time for an non-emergency surgery in the United States, if you dont have health insurance?

Depends on the number of cases that are determined to be more serious when you walk in. Usually several hours is my guess. Cetainly not 122 days or six months.

Not sure about not having health insurance, not sure why it applies, since the people in the UK are covered by insurance.

When my kids had their tonsilectomies and ear tubes (not all at the same time, it was 6 different surgeries at two different places)-all of them could have had their procedures scheduled within a couple of weeks. Most of them took longer, because we opted, at least with tonsilectomies, to do them at a more convienient time for us.

Wait times do have a lot to do with the doctor and the surgery clinic being used.

While it wasn't surgery, when my son was having various barium tests, and endoscopy (surgery for him, due to his age) the bariums were all scheduled with a week, I think the endoscopy was scheduled a month after the doctor recommended we have it done.

A friend of ours needed hip replacement surgery, and I think it took him three weeks to have surgery.

You could also point to Canada as a socialized medicine system that the US would not want to emulate. That doesn’t mean that all socialized medicine is doomed to failure.

Ahh yes, here it comes, the "lets go with France's approach". The only problem is that in France people still have to pay a large part of their bill, and often buy seperate insuarnce. While their system is good, it isn't really socialized medicine like you have in other countries like England, Canada, Germany, etc.

Most people in the UK I know who have full-time jobs use the NHS for routine stuff that can be done with no urgency: see the local OB/GYN for a Papp smear, the DDS for eyeglasses, the Nutritionist for diet advice. You can generally wait a month or two to see these people, particularly if you can plan ahead.

But they also hold private medical insurance that permits them to see a private, for-pay doctor when they think it's urgent.

While I lived in London, I had an excellent private insurance plan. I had a strange something going on one morning and within hours I was at a top cardiac hospital. By 7pm, I had an angioplasty completed.

Ahhh the joys of socialism. I tell ya’ I can’t wait till we get socialized medicine here in the U.S. and we don’t have to pay those big fat administrative costs.

I don't find this to be a compelling argument - although it is fun snark.

You could also point to Canada as a socialized medicine system that the US would not want to emulate. That doesn't mean that all socialized medicine is doomed to failure.

Probably not. Emergency/life threatening attention is not usually postponed. Still, making someone wait for a non-life threatening/non-Emergency procedure/visit/etc. is a cost. A non-monetary cost which accountants and bean counters like. Real people on the other hand still suffer.

I am not being snarky, I just do not understand the English health care model.