From Wikipedia: Private-sector medical care
England has a private sector in health care providing a lesser set of treatments than those obtainable from the NHS. Private health care is sometimes funded by employers through medical insurance as part of a benefits package to employees though it is mostly the larger companies that do. Insurers also market policies directly to the public. Most private care is for specialist referrals with most people retaining their NHS GP as point of first contact.
What they do not state here is that most wealthy people NEVER darken the door of a NHS Hospital. The rest of the country pays for the NHS so they carry the card and use what they can.
This is what is commonly referred to by the Left as a Two Tiered System featuring the haves and the have nots. Those with the money or the good job with good health insurance and those with the NHS.
You see the difference is that in the U.S. you are just as likely to be next to a woman in the maternity ward with Medicaid as with Private insurance. In the UK and the rest of the ‘enlightened’ Western World. you are either stuck in the broom closet with the dregs of society or you PAY EXTRA to go someplace that has an inkling of concern about you and your health because their livelihood depends on it.
Not all NHS hospitals are hellholes that a third world refugee camp would be embarrased at the comparison... Christies in Manchester, for example, is an NHS-run hospital and it is one of the finest cancer hospitals and research centres in the world...
That said, the NHS needs wholesale institutional reform along French or Singaporeon lines....