[Deusdies]

This is a different lifestyle choice. I have many friends who could more than easily afford a car (or two), but they choose not to have one - the public transportation system is more than enough for them.

Also, I live in Serbia, and honestly even we don't wait "weeks or months" for non-emergency issues. As someone who has lived in the US as well, I've actually waited longer in the US hospital than in the Serbian one. I'm really not sure where that stereotype of "you have to wait months for surgery in Europe" comes from.

[bxc]

The National Health Service in the UK has this as a strong stereotype; and it is true in some places. But the only two times I've used a UK hospital, I've been done within 24 hours.

Part of me wants (without any evidence) to say this is not to do with the socially provided/not socially provided difference, but with how that benefit is provided.

I've lived in the Netherlands where the state healthcare took the form of (mandatory, price-fixed) insurance which you used by buying medical care and paying for with your insurance. That allowed me to use any hospital in NL or indeed the world (with the proviso that it was same, cheaper than NL).

There are ongoing battles in the UK to let that kind of "market portability" happen, but the way that the NHS bureaucracy works makes it hard; and maybe its the lack of that end consumer choice which lets things sometimes get so slow. (I think that's a similar complaint to HMO users in the US)