In Australia, this is mostly because there are tax implications for not being a private health care member past the age of 31 when you earn over a certain amount. Our public system is great (and actually exists).
reply> In Australia, this is mostly because
replyit's an attempt to starve funding from the public system. (Howard was responsible for destroying the first universal healthcare system in australia before the later second attempt)
The private hospitals specialise in elective uncomplicated day ops because the returns from the medicare payment are better than complicated cases that get the same fixed payment. It's also why they transfer anything slightly complicated into public hospitals.