1) Purely private enterprise healthcare systems are comparatively rare. Where they exist, it is usually for a comparatively well-off subpopulation in a poorer country with a poorer standard of healthcare–for instance, private clinics for a small, wealthy expatriate population in an otherwise poor country. But there are countries with a majority-private healthcare system with residual public service (see Medicare, Medicaid).

2) The other major models are public insurance systems:

 a) Social security healthcare model, where workers and their families are insured by the State.

 b) Publicly funded healthcare model, where the residents of the country are insured by the State.

 c) Sickness insurance model, where the whole population or most of the population is a member of a sickness insurance company, which many regard as the ideal U.S. model, but which due to increasing costs is now less true than it was previously in the U.S.

In almost every country with a government health care system a parallel private system is allowed to operate. This is sometimes referred to as two-tier health care. The scale, extent, and funding of these private systems is very variable. In Canada the lack of private care is notable, and pride is widespread in their one-tier system of only government-provided healthcare, largely coordinated at the provincial level.

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