[rich_sasha]

Actually, having a national service + private insurance is quite good. That's what the UK does (well, except the NHS is possibly going bust).

Because in principle the state insurer provides you with every service, just possibly not very well or in appropriate time, the private insurers have to compete with it and demonstrate some added value.

Ironically, as the NHS is going downhill, the insurers in the UK, IME, are getting Americanised too.

[Gud]

Frankly this doesn’t sound so great to me. “Not very well and too late” sounds like something you should expect from a poor country?

[rich_sasha]

As I say, it is now breaking down.

But say in 2019, you could expect from the totally free, universal provider to treat anything: broken bones, medical emergencies, teeth, bad back, headaches, cancer, dementia, mental health... Even some cutting edge treatments were available. And yes, you'd wait longer than you'd like, but it would come in decent time. The hospital food would be so-so and you'd probably share a room with lots of people, but it would be free - you could spend not a penny.

Then the private insurers were cheap-ish and had to have good customer care. Now, the NHS is in disarray, private healthcare effectively doesn't have any competition and IME stopped trying.