So I am gathering, from posts made on the other thread about health care, that the reason they can have both national health care and private insurance in the UK is pretty much the same reason some people buy Fords and others by Jaguars. They both get around just fine and do the job that is needed, but one of them has more bells and whistles, for those who can afford them.

This is a very good system because it means that those who would have no choice whatever (like the almost fifty million people in the US who don't have access to health care) will have at least one choice, and those who can afford to can have many choices, which is also better than what we have here, because most people in the US who have insurance are not able to choose who provides their coverage.

It's a better system by every measure.