You can have the 'customer pays' model in Britain too if you want it - just roll up to a BUPA (or some other private) hospital and whip out your wallet.

I was just talking to an elderly person who had a heart attack 2 months ago. Before insurance cost was around $200'000 and if she went with the more invasive option, it could of been $500'000. For one bloody heart attack.

If that doctor had told you you had cancer, your preference might be different.

And my entire accident prone family has had fantastically good services from the NHS on numerous occasions...

So our anecdotes cancel out :-)

The US and UK are both bad examples. Here in Aus we have universal healthcare and private - if you want to jump waiting lines or have carpet on the waiting room floor, pull out your wallet and go private.

There are a few problems, but there is no perfect health system as there is always more demand than supply.

Interestingly, on the European continent, carpet is considered a bit shit.

Your ideas intrigue me ... seriously, I'd like to know more about this. Which nationalities are you speaking for, and in which contexts? For example, I believe Americans think Brits are very odd for having fitted carpets in bathrooms.

Mostly, I know that Italians think carpet is illogical and disgusting. It dropped heavily in fashion in the mid-nineties in Ireland, and now parquet and tile are close to God. Now I think of it, the last couple of German hotels I stayed in had some type of carpet; very industrial looking.

We Irish have for a long time tended to avoid carpet in bathrooms, but maybe we just don't piss as straight.

Um. The UK has universal healthcare (the NHS) and a parallel private system. I'm not sure why that make it a bad example in this context.

(Admittedly, the NHS is not the best health care system in the world, but then we spend less on it than other countries do as a proportion of GDP.)