Meantime, "better " in this country is a ridiculously low bar. But we average from a few terrible public hospitals to judge the whole system yet somehow we don't do that for the terrible private ones ?
What, you don't know how terrible our BAD private hospitals are ? Did you forget that just a few years ago one of them was caught stealing and smuggling people's organs ? Did you forget that it was part of the largest and most profitable hospital chain in the country  ? Why don't we call ALL netcare hospitals organ harvesters  ?
If the free market is so good at punishing bad actors... why is Netcare still in busines ? Hell even the specific hospital where this scandal happened is still open, still in business, still profitable. A few token firings... big whoop.
Healthcare is just like water in this sense: there can never BE a free market in it. A free market requires relative parity of negotiating power. In both those cases - it simply doesn't exist.