I used to work in the British National Health Service (NHS) at a time when eletricity, gas, water and the Post Office were publically owned utilities. I could never understand why hospitals had to pay electricity, gas and water bills, for postage and for telephone calls (the Post Office then ran both of the last two utilities). The same goes for the bills each utility paid to the others. It cost money to circulate money from one part of the same (public) sector to another.
