Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost every universal healthcare system is has some degree of mix of private and public. Norway is on the far extreme with it's strict restrictions on private healthcare. Almost every other country has private healthcare insurance as at least an option. The question tends to be how much you end up contributing towards public healthcare if you take out a private option - ranging from no difference (you pay the same t…
Strict restrictions? I can chose whatever hospital I want and the government will pay for it regardless as long as a GP has referred me to them. If you want you can just pay out of your pocket as well without going through a GP. There is even a portal where you can search for your ailment and choose hospital (private or public) based on their waiting lists. https://helsenorge.no/velg-behandlingssted The government al…
The argument for this has traditionally been that there is a unique scalability problem in medicine: You can't e.g. just educate twice as many heart surgeons, because they need a sufficient number of operations that they can assist in etc. to gain proficiency with real patients, and that pool of patients is limited.
This creates a problem where not restricting which services can be offered has the potential to lower quality of service for all. Something that's a particular concern in countries with smaller populations.
The services that are not restricted are in general areas where there's either a higher volume of patients, or where it requires less training. A sinus infection is a good example of both.
Note that I'm not arguing that this is worse in any way, but used it to delineate one of the most restrictive alternatives when it comes to the availability of private services.