I live in the UK. When I was 10 years old, I was acting/speaking oddly one evening. My parents spoke to an out of hours GP service, and on their advice took me to hospital.

After having various tests performed on me through the night, I was diagnosed with encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. I was in hospital for a couple of weeks being treated and had to take medicine and have scans for months. All of this was free.

When I was a teenager, I found out my parents had been told that if they had waited until the following morning to bring me to hospital, I may well have had permanent brain damage.

When I consider paid for healthcare, I think: would my parents have been as quick to take me, knowing they may have to pay thousands for tests that could say I was fine? Or would they decide I might just have a fever, and tuck me in, and see how I was in the morning?