You're not entirely wrong, however, I do not really agree with your conclusions.
I am French, so I come from a world at a cross between the NHS "wait and carry on" and the American high interventionism even when the benefits/risks balance isn't necessarily in the right direction.
The difference between the UK and France? It's the same system, of a state-subsidised healthcare, but unlike the UK, private care is subsidised at the same level (if your NHS GP gets paid £25 for a 15mins appointment, then the French state considers that it shall fund £25 towards that primary care for you but leave up to you the choice of with whom you'll spend it. Primary or secondary care, state-funded in France means choice between state offer and private offer.
Since in France the private offer is financially aligned with the state offer (to be funded the doctors have to sign a convention, meaning their price needs to remain in a certain range) and state-funded, French people get more of a similar level of care to Americans than British people.
For example, I had a deep cleaning of my teeth every 6 to 12 months in my life (state-funded) and considered it a norm, something you have to do just to keep healthy teeth and that everyone do.
I was in for a serious shock when I came to live in the UK. The state doesn't even find it its duty to treat a tooth infection. Apparently, in the UK an infection doesn't have to be treated if it's sitting in your teeth, despite the cardiovascular risks? I mean, sure if you get up at 8 am (and not 8.30 then it's too late!) to ask for a phone call from your GP you might get some antibiotics sent your way, which won't solve the underlying issue. Because alas, when it comes to removing the dead tissue from your mouth causing the infection, you'll be in from your pocket and to a cost that would seem absolutely scandalous to a French person.
As a result of being able to access everything state-funded, including private care, French people have the best of both worlds (ranked 1st healthcare service in the world by WHO), and a less dogmatic view of what harm or good both the British and the American healthcare systems provide.
So our views (which are shared by most state-subsidised healthcare residents, such as Ireland, Germany, Italy, and so on) are that :
- the British (state-funded) healthcare is absolutely too minimalistic, to the point that it endangers lives, end of it; You'll be better served in Italy or Spain, considering that the private healthcare is as unregulated and expensive (albeit excellent) as the American one.
- the American healthcare is mostly excellent when you can afford it, and within reason kept; There is indeed a push-to-intervene tendency, which is immediately identifiable at the C-section rate.
And since I'm in the UK I've been constantly treated as if I just swallow pills for fun and I need none of it. However, during my decades in France I've never seen as many walking aids as I've seen in a couple of years in the UK, not to mention the bad teeth or the many coughs or the severe obesity (pain prevents you to exercise, which makes you put on weight, which prevents you to exercise, vicious circle and unsurprisingly I couldn't access in the UK the pain management I had in France and was more or less offered mindfulness instead) and found that mostly any call to the GP in the UK concludes by the GP ordering you to "just buy xxxx OTC".
To illustrate how minimal the British healthcare is, French GPs have a dispensary in London for French citizens in the UK, and this despite the fact that any French citizen necessarily access the NHS for free (I mean pre-brexit and (pre)settled status, I don't know how it works now since if not leave to remain). https://www.df-sfb.org.uk/fr/
Do you know a British dispensary in Paris? Because I don't.