Comment by TeMPOraL

At high levels, often yes. At lower levels, often it's job security.

Most doctors aren't running departments in major hospitals, or advising government on policy. They don't earn the big bucks. And even hospitals themselves tend to run in the red all the time; it's sometimes hard to disentangle where greed ends, and longer-term interests of patients begin, as you have multiple people and organizations pulling in different directions for different reasons.

RE private medical universities, N=1 but in Poland we have a private provider pushing hard for training their own doctors "because public system is too slow and limited", and it's hard to tell whether they have a point, or whether it's a private-driven attempt at privatizing national healthcare, or a mix of both.