Scaredey-cat nonsense, Thorne. Why do you assume free (well, paid-for by taxes, actually) health treatment will be so inferior that your rulers will avoid it? Why do you pefer a system that cures its sick only if they can pay for it? Over here in the UK, many of our "rulers" do use the NHS. And many don't. The reasons they usually cite for not using the NHS (especially the left-wing politicians) include, they must avoid the waiting lists because they are "very important people", or they are using their freedom to choose, or because of the security risks. But no matter what, they have a vested interest in keeping the NHS going because they would be voted out of office if they didn't. Here, everyone has a right to the best healthcare possible, even if he is poor.
In the UK we have a private healthcare system as well as a state-run system. The "private" doctors are mostly NHS doctors moonlighting after a hard day's work in the state-owned hospital. Often they use NHS facilities to supply their "private" services because the private sector cannot afford them, or it's not commercially viable to purchase them.
Staffing is worse in the private system, too, because, once the doctors have gone home, only a few nurses are left. If there's an emergancy at night, doctors have to be called in, or the patient taken to an NHS hospital, where there are doctors (if ony junior ones) available at all hours.
Private operations are usually only of the less complex kind because of the lack of facilities, and, perhaps, because it would be too dangerous to let a surgeon who has already been operating all day in one hospital loose on a paying patient in a private one. So the major operations are carried out by the NHS anyway.
When operations go wrong in a private hospital, the patient is frequently brought to an NHS hospital for corrective surgery. I doubt it ever happens the other way round.
NHS has its faults, like any other system - as denuseri points out, they all do. And in the majority of cases, the reason is funding, not training - although standards may vary a bit, not staffing, nor the will to heal. In the UK, funding problems have lowered the standard of healthcare considerably. Everything has to be costed now. We have dirty hospitals because we skimp on cleaners, some drugs are not available on the NHS because cheaper, less effective ones are available. The administration is top-heavy because the overpaid fat cats at the top are more intersted in their careers than in their patients. And lawyers are getting in on the act too, so more and more funds that could go into health care are lining solicitors' pockets instead. But we have considerable success too. In the US (so far as I know) you have superb facilities that even we Brits will travel to use if we have the money and the NHS can't deal with our problem. But there's the rub. We - and Americans - need money to be treated in the US system. Americans who don't have money, can rely on health insurance schemes. Except they are costly, and there are so many exclusions, such as, if you're likely to fall ill, you won't be covered. If you do fall ill, you won't be covered again. And whatever happens, you're only covered for so much. After that, I gather you have to rely on the government-funded or charitable systems that are no better than a third-world country would provide.
Isn't that a mark of shame for the world's richest country?