> You can dictate prices and have a private service model.
Perhaps, but at that point, you usually have a system where providers see their only way of making a profit as cutting costs - except those cuts are never passed onto the taxpayer. It's the worst of both worlds. NHS England has been forced into selling off parts of its operation in a similar manner to what you're suggesting for ideological reasons, and it's only cost us more money for worse service.
Perhaps it works where there's actually competition - e.g. where there's a choice of half a dozen providers owned by entirely separate entities that you could reasonably go to, which might be the case in some cities - but it doesn't work where there's few options for service users.
> You can dictate prices and have a private service model. See Medicare Advantage for a US based example of this that is fairly popular with consumers.
Medicare Advantage doesn't dictate prices. And indirectly, this is the entire reason that it it's popular (the service is substantially better).
> For additional services, but what about Part A and Part B? Seems that Advantage plans get similar pricing to traditional:
Parts A and B are Original Medicare. If you're on Medicare Advantage, it replaces Part A/B coverage.
(It's also a bit more complicated than that, because Medicare Advantage plans are provided by the same private insurers who cover non-Medicare patients, and they'll structure their agreements in such a way that the extra payments are hidden. For example, "for every Medicare Advantage patient of ours you see, we'll reimburse an additional X% for non-Medicare patient" - it's not literally like that or that explicit, but that's the shape of how it shakes out).
Perhaps, but at that point, you usually have a system where providers see their only way of making a profit as cutting costs - except those cuts are never passed onto the taxpayer. It's the worst of both worlds. NHS England has been forced into selling off parts of its operation in a similar manner to what you're suggesting for ideological reasons, and it's only cost us more money for worse service.
Perhaps it works where there's actually competition - e.g. where there's a choice of half a dozen providers owned by entirely separate entities that you could reasonably go to, which might be the case in some cities - but it doesn't work where there's few options for service users.