Sure, the stakes are much higher, but people often choose their physician based on skill. Why not throw cost into the mix as well? Right now that’s impossible.
It's not that, it's that the cancer treatments are non-optional. Optional treatments have the luxury of price comparison and choosing the perfect vendor - cancer waits for no man and it shouldn't be the market deciding whether someone lives or dies.
There is always an option. People die of cancer choosing not to treat it every day in every part of the world.
I think opinions like yours above always stem from the naive assumption that all life is worth infinite at any point, so any obstacle to prolong it is a failure. Well, its not. Some treatments are expensive and cost is definitely something to take into account.
If you get cancer and the treatment to save you is 100 million dollars, you better have them, because other people should not pay for that lavish expenditure.
I know plenty of cancer patients who got referrals to several of oncologists, interviewed them, then selected the one they thought was best equipped to treat their cancer.
Fee like in these threads the people taking the other side of this conversation haven't had to deal with a serious health problem either for themselves or someone else. The whole shipping around bit basically does not work. What are you going to do pester doctors about hypothetical health issues? Change doctors, hospitals in the middle of treatment just to see if you get better treatment. Yeah lets try that a dozen times and then pick the 'best' yeah right. How you make a 'free market' work in a system with so many natural information asymmetries and frictions is beyond me.
