Funding wouldn’t hurt wait times if a free market system was in place. A free market would have just added more staff, thus more profit. It would have been a win for the patient, a win for the practice and a win for the guy that got hired.
Sure, that's a great system for the 5% of patients who can afford to pay cash for everything.
I not only got my cataract surgery promptly but I was willing to pay more for special inserts. I’m not sure now that the inserts were worth it but point is I had choices.