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Comment by Xuper | Hacker News Reader

Nah, just millions of people paid as well. It's like saying education is "free".

In this case it's a UK private hospital not funded by the NHS so the comparison is valid. The article compares one of the most expensive private hospital of the UK to the cost of an average US hospital. Also the US spends more in public taxes for healthcare than the UK so I don't see your point.

Should highlight that many private hospitals are attached or "next door" to NHS hospitals. With surgical "complications" (post-infection, mid-op crash, etc), many of these private hospitals will discharge their patients to the NHS hospital for care.

How? Because they can. It keeps costs down and the NHS can't [0] refuse to treat somebody, even if they're coming from a private surgical ward.

I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but this is one reason why private elective care is so cheap in the UK. The other being that they have to compete with £0.

[0] https://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2572.aspx?CategoryID=96

It's actually a UK NHS hospital which operates a private maternity wing on the side. The email address in the brochure is even @nhs.net. They're probably relying on staff and resources from the NHS side to handle more difficult births too.

Private companies who provide services to the NHS also get @nhs.net email addresses. It's a secure email system so that patient and other confidential data can be exchanged between providers without it going out onto random internet mail servers.

An @nhs.net email doesn't mean "this person/organisation is a part of the NHS", it means they provide services to the NHS and need to deal with patient data.

As it says on the hospital's website, "difficult" births will be free to those eligible (British, EU etc) but will be charged to others (presumably people like the wealthy Arab people in the brochure).

This is not true, the US spends as much government money per capita on health care as the UK (see for example http://uk.businessinsider.com/us-spends-more-public-money-on...)

> This is not true, the US spends as much government money per capita on health care as the UK

Per capita spending seems like a misleading basis for comparison to me. US government healthcare schemes cover about 25% of the population, whereas in the UK the NHS covers essentially 100% of the population.

I agree! This is a rebuttal to the fact that in the UK it is the tax payer that is paying for things and the cost is hidden / spread over many people.

The US tax payer already pays as much or more as the UK one, all the extra payments are just a "bonus".

My apologies. I misunderstood.

But it's ok for taxes to pay for roads and garbage collection?

It's OK for taxes to pay for anything, you just have to remember that just because you don't swipe your credit card or get a bill it doesn't mean that something is "free".

This is just disingenuous. And perhaps the wrong way to think about it.

Sure, it's not 'free'. But when you pay taxes, everyone doesn't pay equal amounts. Those who are able to earn more money, pay more taxes. Those who can't pay less. But no one is left to fend for themselves. Even the poor can get treatment. We're also not paying anything like the insane prices you pay in America.

I would like to differ and make the claim that most of it actually is indeed "free", since we are all living very comfortably off a huge inheritance and network effects:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16912315

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16889577

I did not say it's a bad idea.

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