I worked in the NHS for a year when I was a senior in medical school.
There is no perfect system. When I was there the fact that no payments from patients to doctors or hospitals was very important to the users of the system.
Anecdote: I was working in an Oncology unit. My landlady asked me to check a lump in her neck. Rock hard. Obvious cancer.
This was in March. Her GP had arranged an appointment for her in my unit several months hence.
“Oh no”, I said. “Come with me tomorrow and we’ll see the doctor”.
I will never forget the look on her face, like I had slapped her. “Oh no! It wouldn’t be right!”(To jump the queue).
Obviously that would never work here. But for the British people of that time, waiting and paying the price was superior to bankruptcy from
Medical bills, which my colleagues of the day thought was an obscenity.
I remember you citing that anecdote on a previous occasion. What I don’t think you disclosed then, and don’t now, was your own reaction at the time. Incredulity? Contempt? Awe?... and did you persuade her to change her mind?