[five18pm]

You are equating higher cost with better quality. There usually is a correlation, but with US healthcare's opaqueness with prices, I wouldn't make that correlation.

Leaving aside that, people do in fact make medical decisions based on cost. For example, for angioplasty there are two options - a medicated stent and a non-medicated, regular stent. The medicated stent is more expensive than the normal one. When it came to choosing one for my father, I chose a medicated one only because I was paying through insurance. But many of the patients out here in India don't have insurance. In that case there is a definite probability that a lower cost one will be chosen. Another example is dialysis. The frequency at which people perform dialysis is directly related to cost and affordability.

It is not always a given that patients would go for the absolute best.

[aestra]

Anesthesia during wisdom teeth extraction is another good example. I was given 3 options by the oral surgeon (with prices attached)

1) (Cheapest) local

2) (Middle) nitrous oxide

3) (Most expensive) IV sedation

In my case my oral surgeon basically said I'd be nuts to go with option 1, since my surgery was complicated.