cancer waiting times for the NHS are here :

http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/ca...08/q3/eng.html

As you can see 99.8% of urgent referalls are seen by a specialist within 14 days.

The NHS has limited funds and some drugs are considered too expensive and not "cost efficient". I know of no proven life saving drug that is not available due to cost.

This must be similar to your system where your insurance company, presumably, has less money than the UK Government and as a result may not offer certain very expensive treatments where the benefit is not conclusive.

We hear a lot of scare stories about US medical care such as road accident victims being turned away from hospitals because they are not suitably insured and to be honest I do not know where fiction starts and ends. I do know that judging by the level of political and patient "noise" the US healthcare system generates that it is far from perfect and you have a number of your own problems to solve.

Take care,
Neil.