We've got a decent enough private hospital near us. Big reception room with comfy chairs, which some people like, I suppose. (I don't, it doesn't feel like a hospital to me.) Sometimes our local NHS hospital will make use of the private hospital's services, to ease some rush. More typically the private hospital will call in the NHS to take over when something is going wrong with a case, and they need a bit more expertise.

Or people in a hurry will use the private hospital to carry out a test of some kind - if it indicates treatment is needed, that can be carried out by the NHS, making use of the private hospital's test results to save time and expense.

But all this is completely irrelevant to what should be the issues in the States at present. Whatever happens they are going to have to muddle along with their strange and costly system. The relatively minor changes being proposed would make it fairer and less damaging to the millions who fall through the net, or get chucked overboard, but it would still be essentially the same system.

Looking at it selfishly, the big advantage of the proposed reforms would it that it would be harder for those in positions of responsibility to fend off criticism of any aspect of the NHS by pointing at the USA. "Think how much worse it could be if you lived over there..."