A perspective on medicine you don't hear very often

... and one with which I agree.

I've always been struck by the phrase "you can't put a price on life." Apparently you can.

What you can't do is rationally offer a rational person anything in exchange for their life--any value the person might obtain is null absent their life. What you can do is offer to perform a service that will save their life--for a fee.

When my friend George was dying of liver cancer 4 years ago, the hospital had published year-end reports. Of the 30,000 people they saw that year and treated, only 3,000 people had insurance or paid by other means. 1 in 10 distince people paid. This does not account for the fact that of the distinct people that paid, they had higher average number of visits than people who did pay. This is because when you can get something for free, you tend to take advantage of it more often.

This means that your medical costs (inclusive, as in including what they charge you directly, what the government takes from you, etc.) are at least 10 times higher than they would be if everyone paid their own way. This means that George's many $2k per day hospital stays should have been around $200 per day, and would have been had he not been paying for 9 other people besides.