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The problem is most likely that the hospitals are being operated for-profit by companies, so they cut staff to increase their margins.

Not in the UK.

It's publicly funded, but the government still pays the money to private for-profit companies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7756069/

"For-Profit Hospitals Have Thrived Because of Generous Public Reimbursement Schemes"

In 2014, 11.1% of all UK hospitals were for-profit.

It's not like the free market is immune to supply shocks either. E.g. Overbooked planes. It's never efficient to aim for 100% availability.

You also don't have this problem if people just can't afford them and drive themselves.

Seems a bit cheap to directly jump to "socialized healthcare bad"

Rationing with privatised medicine, not just for ambulances but for pretty much everything else as well? Say it isn't so!

Commenting on a UK-based story, not the flagged comment that I can’t read: How is emergency medicine privatised in the UK? Underfunded yes, but privatised?

It's a sarcastic response to "Rationing with socialized medicine? Say it isn't so!"

You should probably enable 'showdead' in your HN settings to avoid confusion, if you plan to participate in threads started by dead comments.