> I wish we could have it both ways somehow: a baseline level of widely available cheap care and an expensive tier for people who'd pay anything to get quick c

> I wish we could have it both ways somehow: a baseline level of widely available cheap care and an expensive tier for people who'd pay anything to get quick care. I think that's quite common? There are both public and private clinics in Norway, but public health care only covers the public ones. My wife and I visited a private clinic in Denmark to get NIPT test even though it was covered in Norway, because the process was longer in the public system (not too bad, but wasn't too expensive to just pay to have it done fast and we wanted to take a trip to Denmark anyway). I know there's kind of a mix in Taiwan too. The argument against having policies that encourages private clinics is that wealthy individuals with a lot of political influence might try to push for funding cuts for public clinics if they don't depend on them. And the best doctors might prefer to work for private clinics if the pay is better. All-in-all I think a mix is best though.