 In the UK, it is private health insurers that ration care (in the sense of not covering the most common services such as access to a primary care physician or excluding pre-existing conditions) rather than the NHS.Free access to a general practitioner is a core right in the NHS, but private insurers in the UK will not pay for payments to a private primary care physician.Private insurers exclude many of the most common services as well as many of the most expensive treatments, whereas the vast majority of these are not excluded from the NHS but are obtainable at no cost to the patient.