[jeromegv]

Is that supposed to be an advertisement for private healthcare? With insurances companies deciding based on profit margins? I'd say the government incentives are a lot more aligned to have their population healthy and productive, than the insurance company looking at how much you paid for your premium and how much the treatment is.

[googlryas]

Pointing out a conflict of interest is not an advertisement for anything. It is what it is. You could also have publicly funded, 100% government provided healthcare which provided some base level of care but allowed individuals to pay for specific treatments if they wanted them and they weren't a part of the base level of care.

[6t6t6t6]

Most public healthcare systems provide excellent treatments for the majority of the population. And, if you have some rare condition that can only be treated with some state-of-the-art cure that is only provided by some hospital out of the country, and you have several hundred thousand $$$ in your bank account, nobody will stop you from paying the treatment from your pocket.

[nickff]

It's best to know and understand each party's interests. Insurance companies want to keep you alive and paying premiums. Hospitals (government, for-profit, and non-profit) want you to receive a lot of treatment. The government treasury wants to keep you alive as long as your future tax payments exceed their healthcare and other expenditures. Government health departments have an extremely complicated set of incentives, dependent on exactly how they're organized.