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The answer is more complicated than you’d think.

The private sector is delivering a slightly faster registration (they do want the money!), but at the moment it suffers from the exact same capacity issues as the NHS when it comes to actual treatment by virtue of it sharing premises and staff with the NHS in a lot of places.

I think if the NHS was being comprehensively spanked by the private sector in terms of waiting times, AND it delivered a superior service all round, AND you knew you’d get a much better room with a view, then people would be more inclined to adopt a more Americanised model.

Currently, the private sector isn’t that well-developed so you are effectively paying more for the same service if you go private.

At the moment, your “choice” is, wait 7 days for a bunion op in the private sector or 8 days for the NHS to do it. Chances are, whichever option you plump for, it’ll be the same doctor in the same room using the same drugs and equipment.

Frankly, most people take the line that it’s not a substantially greater hardship to wait 8 days, than to wait for 7. If the private sector said “we can do it the same day” then more people would go private, but obviously it doesn’t have the capacity to make that offer.

On the same basis, a flu epidemic in the UK means the private sector can’t really cope much better than the NHS. Same nurses, same doctors, same number of treatment rooms, same opening hours, same number of sick people. Doesn’t matter if one’s paying to go private or all are paying to go private if the beds are all full.

After moving to a new county in the UK, it took me six months to get myself registered with a PRIVATE dental clinic due to oversubscriptions.

I had had stage one of a root canal completed but then had to wait for nearly two weeks for an available space for an appointment to get the next bit of it done.

It was three more weeks before they could confirm a third appointment time to finish the job, and I’ve had to book the follow-up for JUNE to stand any chance of actually getting an hour of the dentists’ time.

I could’ve gone to a clinic that doesn’t serve the NHS at all, and had the whole thing done a bit quicker, but it would’ve meant seeing the price of my root canal going up TENFOLD.

And I’m not joking. Here’s a comparison between Genix (private but shares premises with the NHS), the NHS itself, and fully private clinics in the area:

http://www.genixhealthcare.com/5/38/nhs

That’s the difference between the UK and America right now, and it is the problem you will have if Obamacare gets established.

Services that compete against Obamacare won’t be much more responsive, and the price of services that deliver prompt high quality service will go through the roof.