Generation of boomers accumulated lots of wealth, mostly thanks to house prices skyrocketing during their lifetime. Not all but many old people can afford private healthcare. Younger people need NHS more.
The irony is that in our experience, if you're old or a child, you're far more likely to be treated quickly on the NHS.
Perhaps that isn't the whole story, maybe old people tend to have more life threatening conditions, so triage puts them first. But from my perspective, private health insurance is now mandatory in the UK if you're not old or a child, and I am even going to put my children on private health insurance. So now I'm paying a fortune in taxes for a health system I can no rely on, so must pay for private too.
The problem with this is that private health insurance is very cheap because there is an NHS that takes care of emergencies and does more than 50% of the rest. So your taxes keep your health insurance premia low.
Otherwise a comprehensive health insurance wouldn’t cost 200£ a month per person (I just requested a quote from AXA, as a 45 year old with no health problems, adding all packages, unlimited specialist visits and no excess)
Yeah, there's a reason why it's a standard perk for tech employees - they're dirt cheap to insure.
I'm a bit older than you, and the taxable value of my PHI is £140/month. I've not looked into what that covers, or what the excess etc is, and have never even considered making use of it.
And why would I? When I needed treatment in a hurry, I was blue lighted to Barts and spent two weeks in their ITU getting world-class care free of charge, with not a single thought given to cost or having to call my insurer to ask permission for particular treatments or whatever. Thank fuck for the NHS!