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The pricing of Medicare in the uk is a bit more transparent. If you visit private health care provider they will give upfront the price for self-paying vs insurance. The insurance price is often more than double, e.g. MRI scan via insurance is around £950 vs £450 for self paying. It’s often cheaper to cover your medical bills personally than to pay a for-profit corporation and beg them to authorise every treatment when you need.

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Sorry what? The NHS is free. There is no Medicare. Private health insurance is a luxury, it’s basically a queue jump to see the same doctors often in the same hospital as the NHS offers. Pricing is transparent because they just send you to the NHS for non profitable stuff. And if the test were necessary + urgent you’d get it free in the NHS anyway. In fact the awful incentives it creates mainly just lead to lots of unnecessary tests. That’s why insurance often won’t pay.

The NHS is indeed free, but I was not referring to treatment by the NHS. If you are adult with slipped disc, torn muscle or hernia or other no serious issues then good luck trying to be treated on the NHS. The waiting list is usually two or three years. I was referring to the numerous private hospitals existing in London, where you can see a health specialist within days (it sounds like a luxury in britian, but really is the norm in most countries even heavy sanctioned ones like Cuba and Iran)

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