Invariably, this leads to articles asking whether we want citizens to have to hand over credit cards when the ambulance arrives. Articles like this one.When they do write about other European healthcare systems they are always presented as public sector nirvanas.

The Guardian in the UK, for instance, can write po-faced articles praising the French system without acknowledging, for a single moment, that private-for-profit hospitals make up a larger percentage of sales in France than they do in the USA. Or that home care delivery is in the hands of large corporates. Or that French out patient labs and radiology are run for profits.A similar argument has recently played out in Sweden where the left is opposed to any for-profit involvement in healthcare services. Again, as this article actually points out America is always the comparitor.In a way this is inevitable. Obamacare and the US healthcare reform debate dominates the web. But I don’t think it is. As a journalist I know the real problem is that systems look very different, journalists are ignorant and time-pressured and, crucially, there just isn’t much easy to get info on what the private sector can offer anywhere.

Perhaps it is time the industry got its act in order and started seriously informing the electorate and the media about what private healthcare in different European countries actually does and how and where it saves money. Put your heads above the parapet for once, guys.