It's incorrect that you can't sue the NHS. But also, the quality of health becomes political, so democratic mechanisms rise to prominence as means to hold the system accountable. The press is ever-happy to pounce on medical malpractice.
The NHS does approve experimental and innovative treatments, and it does treat rare conditions. It also chooses whether to offer, or not offer, expensive new drugs. This, again, is democratically accountable - if it refuses a drug that is widely seen as life saving, the tabloids will pressure the politicians into turning up the heat and forcing it to change course. Also there absolutely is an incentive to specialize; the NHS pays a doctor's salary, so (provided it's willing to hire them) they do not have to pick a specialty that's profitable.
Moreover, the NHS, being free at the point of delivery, is willing to take on expensive treatment of poor people. In Britain, the idea that someone might go untreated perhaps for years for a quickly treatable illness, because going to hospital would bankrupt them, is seen as abhorrent and barbaric.
Ill health strikes randomly without regard to wealth; health of everybody benefits everybody. Therefore, everybody should pay according to what they can afford, everybody should be covered according to what they need.
I did not state that a national health service was impossible to sue, just that it is harder to sue; as especially with democratic processes dictating service levels, those same processes will also have to dictate operational mechanics to make sure everything is being done "by the book" (and "sustainable", according to some central regulatory body). Ultimately if a provider can prove they were following the letter of the regulations, their culpability is diffused back to the regulatory authority, and their liability diminished.
I was not targeting the British NHS, in fact, I didn't mention it. However, I would point out that:
> the idea that someone might go untreated perhaps for years for a quickly treatable illness, because going to hospital would bankrupt them, is seen as abhorrent and barbaric.
Is not the same as having a rare condition. You have added (1) quickly treatable, and are assuming (2) easy to diagnose.
The NHS does approve experimental and innovative treatments, and it does treat rare conditions. It also chooses whether to offer, or not offer, expensive new drugs. This, again, is democratically accountable - if it refuses a drug that is widely seen as life saving, the tabloids will pressure the politicians into turning up the heat and forcing it to change course. Also there absolutely is an incentive to specialize; the NHS pays a doctor's salary, so (provided it's willing to hire them) they do not have to pick a specialty that's profitable.
Moreover, the NHS, being free at the point of delivery, is willing to take on expensive treatment of poor people. In Britain, the idea that someone might go untreated perhaps for years for a quickly treatable illness, because going to hospital would bankrupt them, is seen as abhorrent and barbaric.
Ill health strikes randomly without regard to wealth; health of everybody benefits everybody. Therefore, everybody should pay according to what they can afford, everybody should be covered according to what they need.