What has always baffled me is the coupling of health and publicly traded businesses whose goal of record year-on-year profits is in direct conflict with helping

What has always baffled me is the coupling of health and publicly traded businesses whose goal of record year-on-year profits is in direct conflict with helping as many people as possible. Profiteering from suffering is surreal. As an outsider looking in, whilst the UK's NHS isn't in a good place right now due to mismanagement and underfunding, I can't help but feel that in a land of many billionaires, healthcare should be means-tested in its pricing, or there should be an equivocal for the NHS. This'll be an unpopular take on HN, but what is it going to take? Government intervention? Wealth caps? Heavier taxation over x for the mega wealthy? Heavier pricing for the mega wealthy? If people can accrue billions in personal wealth and sit on it then there's a problem. Access to healthcare shouldn't be limited by money. Society would be more productive if it were well. There would inevitably be less crime too. The UK risks losing the NHS as-is. It's terrifying for most folks. No health insurance required to access it. Sure, you may wait for help, e.g., there's a six months waiting list on entering titration for ADHD meds, but access to the same private healthcare provider is there via the NHS, and the waiting list is generally no different than if someone were to pay for it out of their own pocket other than an additional week or so as part of the "Right To Choose" system to be referred.