What are you imagining the typical rate is in much of America. When we lived in the city we had a range of about 225 to 300 per week as of last year. Outside of the city we pay 160 per week.
Or maybe you value the consistency of full enrollment that comes with a waitlist over the additional revenue you could earn with higher prices. Could be the case if there are high costs to changing the size of the business.
Imagine there’s a law that you can only have 4 children per caregiver. Your capacity is 8. Lose one and your revenue is down 12.5%
You can't criticise free markets where there is no market, let alone a free one.
"Supply and demand" is not a free market claim, it is accepted by everyone.
I'm just pointing out that the NHS exchanges monetary cost with temporal cost - you're paying with your time rather than your dollars, for access. You're also paying dollars via tax, but that's unrelated to access.
A nation can accept or even demand this trade-off, and many do - but support tends to drop when it is made explicit.
How so? This doesn't have much to do with a free market.
The same applies if eg the government provides a service for a fee, or otherwise gates access to something. Eg H-1B visas to the US should arguably be auctioned off.
You are a lucky person. I just looked up my tax statements for 2022 and I paid $1341.67/month for an older kid (not infant). Waiting lists are atrocious and everywhere (and many places charge a $75-150 deposit for the waiting list alone); we got in fast because it was a new location. I am in the Midwest, not a coast.
The real issue was the waiting list…