Even if you limit competition among hospitals to non-emergency procedures, it would still be enormously beneficial. But even with emergency procedures I think

Even if you limit competition among hospitals to non-emergency procedures, it would still be enormously beneficial. But even with emergency procedures I think you could still have effective competition based on outcomes and price. Here's an article suggesting that in some cases a poor quality hospital will triple your chance of death compared to a good hospital [0]. With more data, I could imagine a study that says, "Hospital B is so much worse for treating heart attacks than Hospital A that it is equivalent to delaying treatment by 20-25 minutes". Paramedics treating a heart attack victim would therefore have a fairly simple calculation: What is the difference between estimated time taken to reach Hospital A and estimated time taken to reach Hospital B? If more than 25 minutes you choose hospital B, if less than 20 minutes you choose Hospital A, and if between 20 and 25 minutes you choose whichever hospital historically charges the least for heart attack treatment. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/business/hospitals-death-rates-quality-vary-widely.html?src=me http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/business/hospitals-death-r...