so you would have time to shop and compare. And yes, of course, you'd want the best care possible.

But I think the point of this subthread is that even if you had the time to shop around....you still wouldn't be able to figure out what the hell your treatment was going to cost.

About 3 months ago I posted similar about me having to get some fairly simple blood work done. With a high deductible plan, I'd be paying for it. I tried to figure out how much it would cost from 3 different clinical companies / offices local to me. I spent over 3 hours on this shit (sorry for the language, but 3 months later I'm still mad about it) and still had no idea how much any of them would charge me. Some said "you'd have to ask your insurance company that", other's said "what's the procedure code? Oh....that's not in our system...we have our own codes for different things. OK, you need a lipid panel done? Is that lipid panel A, B, C, D or E....could be F too....."

I was stubborn and kept trying to figure out. One of those "OK, this is no longer worth my time and effort things, but DAMMIT>>>>>I'M GOING TO GET AN ANSWER!!!!!!!"

But I didn't, another 3 hours or so on the phone with various clinics, their billing departments, my insurance company....only one was able to finally tell me what it would cost.....but if only one could tell me, well, then I still didn't have anything to compare it to, so how would I know if their price was good, or not?

So that's how much effort it took, with no payoff, to find out the cost for a few simple blood tests. Now imagine trying to do that with an actual long term care plan like with cancer. Even if the doctor told you "It's in the early stages.....you can certainly take a week to examine your options without any danger", I'd bet you wouldn't really be able to get a price if you spent an entire 40 hour work week trying to figure it out.