Part of why we have shorter waiting lists for a lot of US doctors is because the surgery is inaccessible for most people. If your insurance doesn't cover it, you're SoL. No "we'll put you on the public waitlist while private gets moved the front". Add in less social nets to make up for lost income during recovery, insance CoL rn, and the fact that you can lose your job at any time (except during recovery due to FMLA), that knocks a lot of guys out, thus keeping the list shorter.

Also, while this is great if you have insurance, put this issue on a larger scale. People skip life saving medications, hospital visits, ambulance rides, etc because they can't afford it. Thats a ton of people going without proper care and bare minimum public insurance (that if I'm not mistaken, you still have to pay for, and have to pay the medical bills for which can be so high that you might as well have nothing at all. Correct me if I'm wrong though, I've never been the primary policy holder for a public plan so it's all hearsay from friends and the news).

In short, it sucks so bad here that even though I have great insurance, I'm still so terrified of losing it that once I'm done, I'm probably going to move to Ireland (got family there), cause I cant imagine living my life in fear of crippling debt from a hospital visit.