All doctors in Britain were on salary in the 1960s and 1970s. It didn't stop the NHS from going through the same problems we are going through now. Things will never get bad enough for the politicians to admit that government monopoly isn't working, but at some point they will turn a blind eye to the injection of private money.
Waiting lists for hysterectomy had reached over four years when private insurance took off in the UK. Fortunately Brits had never outlawed private care as we did, so insurance was a service that just naturally developed because the NHS was obviously not serving the needs of the people. Within a few years every union in the country had negotiated premiums for private care into their contracts and the people who have their knees, hips, and sundry parts done privately are no longer just the rich, but working men and women. For those not covered under private health insurance, there is still a waiting list, but it is a fraction of what it was.