Cost should play a role but I don't think it should ever cross your mind or need to be a decision you have to make.
In your anecdotal situation let's say you fell and broke your arm and are now sitting in the back of the ambulance when they ask that question. North or South hospital?
With your one good arm are will you load up a cost comparison of services between the hospitals, checking what the procedure might be if the break is impacted, if muscle tissue is torn or needs to be repaired surgically, what followups or cast removal costs, and building a spreadsheet of possible scenarios based on the underlying medical statistics combined with the risk factors of your incident? Ar you comparing that against hospital ratings for those departments and doctors and their success rates combined with education or training in line with best practices or regulations? Then are you compiling this data to make a decision based on which hospital is the most viable economically vs the standard of care for your suspected injury and reaching a decision?
Are you going to do this for every viable healthcare situation in advance so you're aware of updated costs at South or the new star surgeon hired at North hospital?
There's certainly a market for that analysis but I don't think it's analogous to real life. Most people are going to call 911, get in the ambulance if needed, and go to the closest hospital with capacity. The price, quality, and other checks need to happen at a higher level while still be transparent and open. Medicare has tools to solve this just like how the FDA us meant to resolve food safety questions and other governing bodies are there to regulate and enforce standards. Unfortunately it's not as simple libertarian as "North or South?"
This greatly ignores the reality that in a community, when prices are known, there's a collective understanding of which places (regardless of industry) are more expensive than others. And whether the cost difference are justified based on, again, collective experience.
So, no, of course no one is going to fire up the equivalent of GasBuddy when they're in an ambulance. You no doubt already know this, so why make such a ludicrous argument?
Because deputizing the government to negotiate down prices is a saner alternative to keeping costs of emergency services down given that the actual cost depends on so many factors that your analysis is extremely faulty.
The only substantially cheaper across the board hospitals are those people go to die in because they are profoundly incompetent and understaffed.
Which is a form of government regulation allowing punishment of poor/illegal performance. Medicare for all or a universal solution could enforce quality across all healthcare providers while simplifying negotiation not only as the federal government would be the only client to barter with but could make policy restricting costs or overhead in a careful manner.
There would definitely be an app created for all that in no time. We will be able to do all that stuff with one finger and your smartphone. With the exception of the well-off and rich, people who are living on a budget are certainly going to look up costs for non-emergency medical treatment.
In your anecdotal situation let's say you fell and broke your arm and are now sitting in the back of the ambulance when they ask that question. North or South hospital?
With your one good arm are will you load up a cost comparison of services between the hospitals, checking what the procedure might be if the break is impacted, if muscle tissue is torn or needs to be repaired surgically, what followups or cast removal costs, and building a spreadsheet of possible scenarios based on the underlying medical statistics combined with the risk factors of your incident? Ar you comparing that against hospital ratings for those departments and doctors and their success rates combined with education or training in line with best practices or regulations? Then are you compiling this data to make a decision based on which hospital is the most viable economically vs the standard of care for your suspected injury and reaching a decision?
Are you going to do this for every viable healthcare situation in advance so you're aware of updated costs at South or the new star surgeon hired at North hospital?
There's certainly a market for that analysis but I don't think it's analogous to real life. Most people are going to call 911, get in the ambulance if needed, and go to the closest hospital with capacity. The price, quality, and other checks need to happen at a higher level while still be transparent and open. Medicare has tools to solve this just like how the FDA us meant to resolve food safety questions and other governing bodies are there to regulate and enforce standards. Unfortunately it's not as simple libertarian as "North or South?"