14 ms·

Let the ultra-rich and influential skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines?

42 points by elsewhen 6y ago

sbinthree 6y ago
Set a price high enough that this becomes clearly a good thing: what about $25k/person, spent directly on vaccines for others? I've been thinking about the whole "public vaccination" virtue signaling that politicians have been doing. The most ethical path would be to be immunized publicly as a politician at the same time as your risk group rather than before, ideally as the last person in your risk group so you have skin in the game. Whoever is overseeing the vaccine program should go last, for skin in the game.
- maa5444 6y ago
  only if the actual cost of the vaccine wil be equal to manufacturer cost ... zero margin of making money to big phrama
- TremendousJudge 6y ago
  >what about $25k/person, spent directly on vaccines for others You mean a tax?
  - gruez 6y ago
    definition of tax: >Money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tax https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tax
- kingaillas 6y ago
  >I've been thinking about the whole "public vaccination" virtue signaling that politicians have been doing. That's not virtue signaling, or not ONLY virtue signaling - they get priority due to continuity of government laws. See https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/13/white-house-congress-judiciary-prioritized-for-covid-19-vaccines-due-to-continuity-of-government-protocols/ https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/13/white-house-congress-jud... Now if they had integrity, the ones that dismissed, downplayed, ignored, refused to wear masks, etc. should have skipped their dose and given it to someone else. >immunized publicly as a politician at the same time as your risk group That would be nice except Congress is fairly old, average age is 57.6 in the House and 62.9 in the Senate. Not sure there are enough available doses for this to occur.
  - DennisP 6y ago
    Also there's a lot of anti-vax sentiment, and seeing politicians take the vaccine themselves helps counter that.
    - HuwytNashi_004 6y ago
      It's doing the opposite. Some of them have been reenactments, on closer inspection, which only fuel scepticism.
    - HuwytNashi_006 6y ago
      It's doing the opposite. Some of them have been reenactments, on closer inspection, which understandably fuel scepticism.
  - sbinthree 6y ago
    The removal cost of new laws is low because all the important laws already exist.
m3kw9 6y ago
They have a point
richardARPANET 6y ago
The ultra-rich don't need a vaccine. They just get $150k stem cell injections into their neck.
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  You're downvoting a fact. Carry on.
  - phtrivier 6y ago
    Put yourselves in their shoes: they see a blunt affirmation about a medical treatment, without any source, nor any clear term that can be easily searchable in pubmed. Since I do not doubt that you only mention a treatment you're read about in a serious peer-reviewed medecine journal, or have first-hand experience with, I completely understand how hard it must be for you to be downvoted. Maybe take the occasion to enlighten us even more next time.
- gruez 6y ago
  do stem cell injections do anything against covid?
  - richardARPANET 6y ago
    Yes
    - dkersten 6y ago
      Gonna back that up in any way?
- prepend 6y ago
  Do you have some more information about this treatment? I haven’t heard about it, but that might be because I’m not in the market for $150k medical treatments :)
  - 6y ago
Hankenstein2 6y ago
I wouldn't even charge for the privilege. As long as health care workers and nursing homes stay at the absolute head of the line, nothing else really matters until we hit herd immunity. Publicize how desperate the rich are to get the vaccine and that 60% willingness to get vaccinated will go up (which is a large part of what the article said). I think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems. Let the elites think they are pulling strings and just give it to them.
- gruez 6y ago
  >I think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems. Why? >Let the elites think they are pulling strings and just give it to them. But why not give it to them, but also try to extract money from them at the same time?
  - Hankenstein2 6y ago
    You then have to account for and appropriately spend the money which will inevitably be politicized and contentious.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Given the gigantic cost of lockdowns to the economy - billions a day - the government has likely already thrown an lot of money at vaccine production and distribution. If more money could be usefully spent, it would have been. Therefore, if an 80-year-old is 300x more likely to die than 37-year-old Martin Shkreli, moving a dose from the former and to the latter is inefficient.
- mikelward 6y ago
  And grocery store workers, and people with preexisting conditions, and the elderly, and...
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  I disagree. Various populations are at greater risk. Unhoused people, for example, should get the vaccine before me. So should anyone who has to work on site somewhere. Parents and care givers who care for children, etc etc. I work in tech, I work from home and can have stuff delivered. Put me at the end of the line.
jfjrlfkf 6y ago
> In the first tier, 100 of the wealthiest Americans each donate $100 million to be first in line for a vaccine For $100 mil you can buy a small biotech lab and create your own mRNA vaccine. They are not that complicated compared to classical vaccines, and the testing was basically done already by Pfizer/Moderna. And for much less, surely there will be ways to "source" doses. It's ridiculous to think that many rich people will pay $100 mil for a dose.
phtrivier 6y ago
It would be intereseting to see the content organization targeting antivaxers switch from "the vaccine is dangerous, no famous people would take it" to "the vaccine is too expensive, they want to let us die !", probably via a short segway through "the vaccine is dangerous but the rich people are only pretending to take it so that they can kill you."
- Frost1x 6y ago
  I can't help but be reminded of the Potato King story with the current COVID vaccine discussions: https://wight.consulting/2020/05/19/marketing-and-stolen-potatoes/ https://wight.consulting/2020/05/19/marketing-and-stolen-pot...
adolph 6y ago
Sounds good to me, let them be the guinea pigs. The ultra-rich and influential seem to be a renewable resource so it’s not like society will run out, if there are risks not found by tests thus far it won’t be swept under the rug, and they are not so numerous that they will make a serious impact on the supply chain.
- inakarmacoma 6y ago
  Aside from the massive number of testers in Phase 3 trials across the globe?
  - adolph 6y ago
    What number counts as massive? Initial results [0] on Moderna’s are on 95 participants in a trial with 30k [1] due to run to 10/22. I’ll be happy to monitor results and ADE rates before taking the plunge although I’m really excited about the promise of mRNA. 0. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/promising-interim-results-clinical-trial-nih-moderna-covid-19-vaccine https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/promising-inte... 1. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427
- threatofrain 6y ago
  A lot of people have already been the guinea pigs for the drug to reach this stage.
  - adolph 6y ago
    More can’t hurt then, eh?
xiphias2 6y ago
The $100M/vaccine price is stupid, but I would easily pay $1000 to get the vaccine early and raise money for factories. With just 20M doses it would mean $10B income for Moderna.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  As far as I know, there isn’t any real need for more factory investment. Have you heard otherwise?
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    I read that about 1-2 billion vaccines will be created next year. That's nothing for 8 billion people.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      First, The world population is 7.5 billion. Second, are manufacturers interested in filling that 6 billion gap? They can already afford to build the infrastructure and make more vaccines, but it doesn’t do any good if there is nobody to buy them and no way to get them to patients.
- wegs 6y ago
  If the federal government acted like a scalper, I wouldn't feel bad about it. Open auction, with price going as high as it wants, right down to zero. Special categories (e.g. multiple co-morbidities, medical workers) cut to the front, and pay market rate. Let businesses foot much of the bill. If I need to pay $1000 to reopen my factory, it might be a good investment. Free market will allocate resources.
  - xur17 6y ago
    That, or allot some small percentage (5%) for people to bid on to jump the line. Open auction as you described, possibly with a minimum.
  - 6y ago
s1artibartfast 6y ago
The article assumes the vaccine can only be sourced from the US Gov. This brings up some interesting questions about access direct from the manufacturers. When will the manufacturers backorder obligations be filled so they sell the vaccine on the open market? Do they have any contractual requirements to sell through government determined channels?
- andi999 6y ago
  I was wondering as well. One manufacturer wants to use one charge for his employees (to ensure production), but this is sidetracking the official process.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The authorization is limited: https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download "ModernaTX, Inc. will supply Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine either directly or through authorized distributor(s), to emergency response stakeholders as directed by the U.S. government, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and/or other designee, for use consistent with the terms and conditions of this EUA;" So they don't have permission to market it at all really.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Thank you for this! It appears that it is a condition of the Emergency Use Authorization. That would not preclude Moderna going through the full approval process and marketing the product.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Right, they can and likely will file a "Biologics License Application", but they do not presently have permission to market it. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-fda-authorization-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-us https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...
elil17 6y ago
Or we could just raise taxes on anyone who has enough money to pay $100 million for a dose and then give all the vaccines to the people who need them most.
mnd999 6y ago
“Liberals can view it as a wealth tax”. Not really, a tax is something that the government levies on everyone subject to some tax code. What is suggested is not a tax because it’s entirely optional - you’re not paying a tax you’re buying a vaccine.
chadash 6y ago
I don't think it's a crazy idea, but the numbers here seem a bit hopeful. I don't think you're gonna get 100 people to pay $100 million for an earlier spot in the line. Or 1000 people to pay $10 million. Particularly because people with that amount of money to throw around (if you can pay $10 million for one vaccine, you are very very wealthy) know that they can most likely pull strings to get ahead in the line anyway. So at most, they are probably paying to jump ahead by just two or three months from where they will be anyway. (If you are young, healthy and rich, you probably don't care enough to pay these prices. If you are old and rich, you probably are gonna be not-too-far-back in the line anyway).
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  According to this article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rich-wealthy-coronavirus-vaccine-covid-americans-california-b1776549.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rich-wealt... some people are offering ~$25,000 to jump the line.
  - chadash 6y ago
    ~$25,000, sure. That's pocket change for some people. But this article is talking about payments of $10 to $100 million. And in any case, I'm not convinced that 400,000 people would pay $25k.
Pfhreak 6y ago
I thought this was satire after reading the headline. But no, this is someone suggesting celebrities and billionaires should be the first people we protect. In a healthy functioning society, we'd protect the most vulnerable first -- elderly, front line workers, grocery store workers, etc. And we'd find the funding to make that happen either by taxing the ultra wealthy or just printing money because it's a pandemic and they are relatively rare events and the cost to vaccinate everyone is relatively fixed. We have plenty of elderly celebrities who could still be at the front of the line cheering on the vaccine. The approach the author suggests seems like government with extra steps to me.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  “In a healthy functioning society, we'd ...” Well, in your idea of a healthy functioning society. EDIT: the above sounds probably too harsh. But the real question is: Why is that bad? Take also into account that vaccinating celebs is just counting beans in the whole process.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  It's a scarcity problem. We have a finite amount of doses and more importantly, ways to transport and give those doses. Many (but not all) of those problems can be solved by putting more money into the system. One way we handle scarcity in capitalism is by charging for things. Would you be willing to let a rich guy pay $10 million for the vaccine.. if it meant a 1000 teachers could get it for free next week? It is basically a tax on the rich except it's opt in.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    You are describing philanthropy, which is definitely not "basically a tax".
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      Philanthropy is someone wealthy paying for 1000 teachers to get the vaccine and not getting anything in return. Philanthropy may or may not have covenants attached and the philanthropist will have different levels of control: "You must give these vaccines first to the teachers of my local elementary school" or "these must go to teachers in low income areas", etc. That the rich person receives the vaccine for their money, ie a material consideration, makes this not philanthrophy by definition - it's a sale. Or, put another way, me buying an overpriced handmade christmas ornament from Etsy isn't philanthropy either, even if I'm choosing to really overpay.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
I'm not quite in the top 400k of wealth in the country, but I'm decently close, and I can say it's hard to picture paying 25k to skip the line. Nevermind that a lot of the wealthiest folks (older folks) are already at the front of the line due to their advanced age.
babesh 6y ago
What this article doesn’t seem to realize is that they don’t have a seat at the table. If you haven’t been invited then you don’t count. Look at how Stanford Medicine allocated its allocation of the vaccine. It allocated it to administrators first then apologized when it was exposed. What is left unsaid is that they never gave up their power to decide who gets the vaccine. Have you heard of anyone giving up their place in line for the vaccine?
exabrial 6y ago
Let someone pay 20,000x the price of a good or service if they want to. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. This drives early returns on investment, leading to cheaper and widely distributed drugs in the future.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Money is not an issue here. Current resources is.
  - exabrial 6y ago
    Doesn't it take money to increase the supply of a good? A manufacturer making bank on a product is going to reinvest that into his supply chain, increasing the overall supply... a good thing for everyone, which eventually, depresses prices and makes said goods commodity and affordable for everyone.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      The existing purchase guarantees completely swamp any extra demand from private bidders. Say you got a million (or 10 million) people to pay extra (it'd be lot of people at that point); the manufacturing demand wouldn't go up any, and they would probably just delay delivery of some other doses for a week (or a month).
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      I think this includes a number of questionable assumptions. 1) The money would go to the manufacturer. 2) The supply limiting factor can be addressed in a reasonable timeline 3) The demand will exist at the time when supply is increased. 4) The price is a limiting factor. As far as I know, lead times for this drug manufacturing equipment is usually >1 yr and the demand will not be there when it arrives. All of the vaccines currently cost $2-20.
- high_density 6y ago
  ditto this. if some rich people are willing to pay 20,000x, then that roughly means (20,000 - 1) more vaccine for others (per rich person willing to pay, that is.) The other option is paying with tax-money... btw, another view: why fix it to 20,000x? why not auction?
ouid 6y ago
Jesus, when did economists get so single minded? The benefits of a vaccine are almost exclusively from the network effects. It is almost purely externality. Since when are markets capable of efficiently allocating externalities? Likelihood to spread the virus does not correlate with personal incentive to get vaccinated. There might be a market scheme for allocating the virus that does align with society's incentives, but I would bet dollars to pennies that that solution is basically just democratically elected government.
war1025 6y ago
Given the number of people I know personally who have already gotten the vaccine, it seems to me that they aren't being terribly stingy with handing it out to people. I would expect the even moderately wealthy to be able to cut in line and acquire it whether or not they admit to it publicly.
Traster 6y ago
This is just not a serious idea. Firstly, if you do decide you want to suggest diverting the vaccine from people at high risk to people at low risk in order to raise revenue then the least you can do is run the numbers on how many more of those high risk people will die. Secondly "this isn't political! It's either a free-market solution or a tax". No. It's not a free-market solution, it's the governemnt setting an arbitrary price for a product they have a legal monopoly on, it's also not a tax since it's entirely optional for people to pay it. Thirdly, the comparison to Delaney is massively off - Delaney's plan would save nearly $100Bn compared to the current solution of selling the vaccine and congress being forced to hand out $2000 stimulus checks. Becuase the checks weren't really about getting people to take the vaccine, it was about providing the stimulus checks that are already going to happen, but tying them to something. Finally, if you're rich enough to give $100k for a vaccine you're probably rich enough to find a way of getting it somewhere else, so really what we're saying is that you're asking them to make a massive donation for something that they don't need fron you.
yodsanklai 6y ago
I'm curious how much people would be willing to pay for this vaccine if they had to. As someone who is not in an at-risk category and who don't work on the front line, I don't think I'd be willing to pay very much.
SamBorick 6y ago
Counterpoint: No. Use the vaccine to protect the people who are actually in danger. If a billionaire gets covid they can get the super special sci-fi insta-cure that every other person in power gets. The solution to a public health communications issue is not 'get influencers on board' it's to amplify the science communicators who are already doing it, and public policy.
only_friends 6y ago
This article is morally wrong, but the rich is going to get it before the rest of us anyway. I say give it to them, you can't change the fact they will get it first, at least let them beta test it. After most people get it, the risks disappear.
aphextron 6y ago
The author seems to be overstating the actual value of the vaccine. The fair market value is probably somewhere around $10k right now. Any more than that, and you're rich enough to just hop a private jet to New Zealand and hang out with other millionaires right now. The people who would actually pay for this are the 9%; those with just enough means to drop a serious sum, but not enough to abstract away reality the way the 1% can.
matz1 6y ago
I have no problem, let them pay more and subsidize for the rest of the people. At least for covid, the risk is low enough to not matter. I would happily be the last line to get one. Besides I'm not sure supply constraint would be a big problem, i think there are quite lot of people that understand the actual risk of getting seriously sick from covid and wouldn't be that eager to get a vaccine.
nickpp 6y ago
If we lived in a free market-driven world, there would be no question about this. The vaccine would be allocated and priced just like any other scarce resource should be allocated and priced: by demand and supply. After all, it's the strategy that allowed us to feed and shelter a planet of 8 billion. But in reality the vaccine distribution is made through policy and politics. Because this strategy worked so well back in March, with the PPE. If this doesn't prove that we live under socialism, I don't know what will. So check if you have a friend in high places, if you are one of the chosen ones. Because in socialism resources are allocated through the good old power networks. Relations, bureaucracy and so on. Who you know becomes more important than what you know, who you do more important than what you do. It's a brave new world and I hope your dossier is perfect. But don't worry: you'll easily buy a dose on the black market.
colpabar 6y ago
Does anyone think this wasn't already the plan? The ultra rich and influential tend to be friends with others who are ultra rich and/or influential. Remember when all those celebrities were testing positive back when no one was able to get a test? edit: I don't mean it will happen in the way the article describes, rather it will happen because the ultra rich tend to be friends with powerful people who have access to these types of things.
kippinitreal 6y ago
IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it) so we might as well decrimalize it and make a dollar off of them in the process. I’d rather encourage them to give more money to the government than to see how low they go to validate their “essentialness”. It’s not even clear to me that this is such a terrible way to allocate this scarce resources - if the NBA wants to spend a billion dollars on some of the first doses so they can go to work (and subsidize 50m other doses in the process) that doesn’t seem so wrong? For every 100 doses auction off 1 to pay for the other 99 (maybe even more!).
- samizdis 6y ago
  > IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it) An interesting point, and one made in another STAT article [1] from earlier this month - which is linked to from the more recent article: ‘There absolutely will be a black market’: How the rich and privileged can skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-can-skip-the-line-for-covid19-vaccines/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-...
- aczerepinski 6y ago
  I want the NBA to get theirs so I have something to entertain me while I’m waiting six more months for my turn.
_aleph2c_ 6y ago
It could be a marketing campaign paid for by the "greedy rich" to improve the health of the system. American's love celebrities, so if celebrities pay for access, the common American will want what is temporarily denied from them. There is a historical precedent, Antoine Parmentier tricked the French people into adopting the potato in 1786, by placing armed guards around potato fields: https://www.damninteresting.com/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-spuds-of-war/ https://www.damninteresting.com/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-s...
- yodsanklai 6y ago
  > Antoine Parmentier tricked the French people into adopting the potato They should try a similar trick now. It seems many French people are reluctant to get vaccinated.
  - phtrivier 6y ago
    Unfortunately it bas become an identity marker (https://www.letelegramme.fr/france/les-francais-refractaires-au-vaccin-anti-covid-ce-que-disent-vraiment-les-sondages-01-12-2020-12665744.php https://www.letelegramme.fr/france/les-francais-refractaires...), so it's too late to make people change their mind. The "good" news is that elderly, mildly conservative people are more prone to get vaccinated, so at least, if the vaccines are as efficient as hoped in the long run, it should release some pressure on the hospitals. Which might make it possible to release some of the restrictions, which might just calm people down a bit and let everyone have a cooler debate, possibly in a year or two.Then, we'll have a presidential election and(no kidding) a referendum about making the constitution talk about climate change. It will be less profitable to spew conspiracy theory about vaccines, so laymen will take their shots, and we'll get crazy and insane about something else. Maybe a world cup or something ?
Arnt 6y ago
It's a bit disgusting when influential people who talked down the disease now (want to) cheat in the vaccine queue. But maybe it'll convince some people who listened to them that the vaccines are good.
s1artibartfast 6y ago
I expect there will be plenty of vaccine to around pretty soon. There are five more manufacturers which were funded by operation warp seed and are various stages of development. There is also the Chinese vaccine SinoVac, which has stated there will be capacity to manufacture 600 million doses a year by the end of 2020, with another 350 million doses/yr in Indonesia and Brazil.
xnx 6y ago
Or let those who have the option to take vaccines under the current system auction off their spot.

42 points by elsewhen 6y ago

Set a price high enough that this becomes clearly a good thing: what about $25k/person, spent directly on vaccines for others? I've been thinking about the whole "public vaccination" virtue signaling that politicians have been doing. The most ethical path would be to be immunized publicly as a politician at the same time as your risk group rather than before, ideally as the last person in your risk group so you have skin in the game. Whoever is overseeing the vaccine program should go last, for skin in the game.

maa5444 6y ago
only if the actual cost of the vaccine wil be equal to manufacturer cost ... zero margin of making money to big phrama
TremendousJudge 6y ago
>what about $25k/person, spent directly on vaccines for others You mean a tax?
- gruez 6y ago
  definition of tax: >Money paid to the government other than for transaction-specific goods and services. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tax https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tax
kingaillas 6y ago
>I've been thinking about the whole "public vaccination" virtue signaling that politicians have been doing. That's not virtue signaling, or not ONLY virtue signaling - they get priority due to continuity of government laws. See https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/13/white-house-congress-judiciary-prioritized-for-covid-19-vaccines-due-to-continuity-of-government-protocols/ https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/13/white-house-congress-jud... Now if they had integrity, the ones that dismissed, downplayed, ignored, refused to wear masks, etc. should have skipped their dose and given it to someone else. >immunized publicly as a politician at the same time as your risk group That would be nice except Congress is fairly old, average age is 57.6 in the House and 62.9 in the Senate. Not sure there are enough available doses for this to occur.
- DennisP 6y ago
  Also there's a lot of anti-vax sentiment, and seeing politicians take the vaccine themselves helps counter that.
  - HuwytNashi_004 6y ago
    It's doing the opposite. Some of them have been reenactments, on closer inspection, which only fuel scepticism.
  - HuwytNashi_006 6y ago
    It's doing the opposite. Some of them have been reenactments, on closer inspection, which understandably fuel scepticism.
- sbinthree 6y ago
  The removal cost of new laws is low because all the important laws already exist.

m3kw9 6y ago

They have a point

richardARPANET 6y ago

The ultra-rich don't need a vaccine. They just get $150k stem cell injections into their neck.

richardARPANET 6y ago
You're downvoting a fact. Carry on.
- phtrivier 6y ago
  Put yourselves in their shoes: they see a blunt affirmation about a medical treatment, without any source, nor any clear term that can be easily searchable in pubmed. Since I do not doubt that you only mention a treatment you're read about in a serious peer-reviewed medecine journal, or have first-hand experience with, I completely understand how hard it must be for you to be downvoted. Maybe take the occasion to enlighten us even more next time.
gruez 6y ago
do stem cell injections do anything against covid?
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  Yes
  - dkersten 6y ago
    Gonna back that up in any way?
prepend 6y ago
Do you have some more information about this treatment? I haven’t heard about it, but that might be because I’m not in the market for $150k medical treatments :)
- 6y ago

Hankenstein2 6y ago

I wouldn't even charge for the privilege. As long as health care workers and nursing homes stay at the absolute head of the line, nothing else really matters until we hit herd immunity. Publicize how desperate the rich are to get the vaccine and that 60% willingness to get vaccinated will go up (which is a large part of what the article said). I think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems. Let the elites think they are pulling strings and just give it to them.

gruez 6y ago
>I think charging money to skip, just causes a whole raft of other problems. Why? >Let the elites think they are pulling strings and just give it to them. But why not give it to them, but also try to extract money from them at the same time?
- Hankenstein2 6y ago
  You then have to account for and appropriately spend the money which will inevitably be politicized and contentious.
- michaelt 6y ago
  Given the gigantic cost of lockdowns to the economy - billions a day - the government has likely already thrown an lot of money at vaccine production and distribution. If more money could be usefully spent, it would have been. Therefore, if an 80-year-old is 300x more likely to die than 37-year-old Martin Shkreli, moving a dose from the former and to the latter is inefficient.
mikelward 6y ago
And grocery store workers, and people with preexisting conditions, and the elderly, and...
Pfhreak 6y ago
I disagree. Various populations are at greater risk. Unhoused people, for example, should get the vaccine before me. So should anyone who has to work on site somewhere. Parents and care givers who care for children, etc etc. I work in tech, I work from home and can have stuff delivered. Put me at the end of the line.

jfjrlfkf 6y ago

> In the first tier, 100 of the wealthiest Americans each donate $100 million to be first in line for a vaccine For $100 mil you can buy a small biotech lab and create your own mRNA vaccine. They are not that complicated compared to classical vaccines, and the testing was basically done already by Pfizer/Moderna. And for much less, surely there will be ways to "source" doses. It's ridiculous to think that many rich people will pay $100 mil for a dose.

phtrivier 6y ago

It would be intereseting to see the content organization targeting antivaxers switch from "the vaccine is dangerous, no famous people would take it" to "the vaccine is too expensive, they want to let us die !", probably via a short segway through "the vaccine is dangerous but the rich people are only pretending to take it so that they can kill you."

Frost1x 6y ago
I can't help but be reminded of the Potato King story with the current COVID vaccine discussions: https://wight.consulting/2020/05/19/marketing-and-stolen-potatoes/ https://wight.consulting/2020/05/19/marketing-and-stolen-pot...

adolph 6y ago

Sounds good to me, let them be the guinea pigs. The ultra-rich and influential seem to be a renewable resource so it’s not like society will run out, if there are risks not found by tests thus far it won’t be swept under the rug, and they are not so numerous that they will make a serious impact on the supply chain.

inakarmacoma 6y ago
Aside from the massive number of testers in Phase 3 trials across the globe?
- adolph 6y ago
  What number counts as massive? Initial results [0] on Moderna’s are on 95 participants in a trial with 30k [1] due to run to 10/22. I’ll be happy to monitor results and ADE rates before taking the plunge although I’m really excited about the promise of mRNA. 0. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/promising-interim-results-clinical-trial-nih-moderna-covid-19-vaccine https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/promising-inte... 1. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04470427
threatofrain 6y ago
A lot of people have already been the guinea pigs for the drug to reach this stage.
- adolph 6y ago
  More can’t hurt then, eh?

xiphias2 6y ago

The $100M/vaccine price is stupid, but I would easily pay $1000 to get the vaccine early and raise money for factories. With just 20M doses it would mean $10B income for Moderna.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
As far as I know, there isn’t any real need for more factory investment. Have you heard otherwise?
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I read that about 1-2 billion vaccines will be created next year. That's nothing for 8 billion people.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    First, The world population is 7.5 billion. Second, are manufacturers interested in filling that 6 billion gap? They can already afford to build the infrastructure and make more vaccines, but it doesn’t do any good if there is nobody to buy them and no way to get them to patients.
wegs 6y ago
If the federal government acted like a scalper, I wouldn't feel bad about it. Open auction, with price going as high as it wants, right down to zero. Special categories (e.g. multiple co-morbidities, medical workers) cut to the front, and pay market rate. Let businesses foot much of the bill. If I need to pay $1000 to reopen my factory, it might be a good investment. Free market will allocate resources.
- xur17 6y ago
  That, or allot some small percentage (5%) for people to bid on to jump the line. Open auction as you described, possibly with a minimum.
- 6y ago

s1artibartfast 6y ago

The article assumes the vaccine can only be sourced from the US Gov. This brings up some interesting questions about access direct from the manufacturers. When will the manufacturers backorder obligations be filled so they sell the vaccine on the open market? Do they have any contractual requirements to sell through government determined channels?

andi999 6y ago
I was wondering as well. One manufacturer wants to use one charge for his employees (to ensure production), but this is sidetracking the official process.
maxerickson 6y ago
The authorization is limited: https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download "ModernaTX, Inc. will supply Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine either directly or through authorized distributor(s), to emergency response stakeholders as directed by the U.S. government, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and/or other designee, for use consistent with the terms and conditions of this EUA;" So they don't have permission to market it at all really.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Thank you for this! It appears that it is a condition of the Emergency Use Authorization. That would not preclude Moderna going through the full approval process and marketing the product.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Right, they can and likely will file a "Biologics License Application", but they do not presently have permission to market it. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-fda-authorization-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-us https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

elil17 6y ago

Or we could just raise taxes on anyone who has enough money to pay $100 million for a dose and then give all the vaccines to the people who need them most.

mnd999 6y ago

“Liberals can view it as a wealth tax”. Not really, a tax is something that the government levies on everyone subject to some tax code. What is suggested is not a tax because it’s entirely optional - you’re not paying a tax you’re buying a vaccine.

chadash 6y ago

I don't think it's a crazy idea, but the numbers here seem a bit hopeful. I don't think you're gonna get 100 people to pay $100 million for an earlier spot in the line. Or 1000 people to pay $10 million. Particularly because people with that amount of money to throw around (if you can pay $10 million for one vaccine, you are very very wealthy) know that they can most likely pull strings to get ahead in the line anyway. So at most, they are probably paying to jump ahead by just two or three months from where they will be anyway. (If you are young, healthy and rich, you probably don't care enough to pay these prices. If you are old and rich, you probably are gonna be not-too-far-back in the line anyway).

ForHackernews 6y ago
According to this article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rich-wealthy-coronavirus-vaccine-covid-americans-california-b1776549.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rich-wealt... some people are offering ~$25,000 to jump the line.
- chadash 6y ago
  ~$25,000, sure. That's pocket change for some people. But this article is talking about payments of $10 to $100 million. And in any case, I'm not convinced that 400,000 people would pay $25k.

Pfhreak 6y ago

I thought this was satire after reading the headline. But no, this is someone suggesting celebrities and billionaires should be the first people we protect. In a healthy functioning society, we'd protect the most vulnerable first -- elderly, front line workers, grocery store workers, etc. And we'd find the funding to make that happen either by taxing the ultra wealthy or just printing money because it's a pandemic and they are relatively rare events and the cost to vaccinate everyone is relatively fixed. We have plenty of elderly celebrities who could still be at the front of the line cheering on the vaccine. The approach the author suggests seems like government with extra steps to me.

pfortuny 6y ago
“In a healthy functioning society, we'd ...” Well, in your idea of a healthy functioning society. EDIT: the above sounds probably too harsh. But the real question is: Why is that bad? Take also into account that vaccinating celebs is just counting beans in the whole process.
vorpalhex 6y ago
It's a scarcity problem. We have a finite amount of doses and more importantly, ways to transport and give those doses. Many (but not all) of those problems can be solved by putting more money into the system. One way we handle scarcity in capitalism is by charging for things. Would you be willing to let a rich guy pay $10 million for the vaccine.. if it meant a 1000 teachers could get it for free next week? It is basically a tax on the rich except it's opt in.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  You are describing philanthropy, which is definitely not "basically a tax".
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Philanthropy is someone wealthy paying for 1000 teachers to get the vaccine and not getting anything in return. Philanthropy may or may not have covenants attached and the philanthropist will have different levels of control: "You must give these vaccines first to the teachers of my local elementary school" or "these must go to teachers in low income areas", etc. That the rich person receives the vaccine for their money, ie a material consideration, makes this not philanthrophy by definition - it's a sale. Or, put another way, me buying an overpriced handmade christmas ornament from Etsy isn't philanthropy either, even if I'm choosing to really overpay.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

I'm not quite in the top 400k of wealth in the country, but I'm decently close, and I can say it's hard to picture paying 25k to skip the line. Nevermind that a lot of the wealthiest folks (older folks) are already at the front of the line due to their advanced age.

babesh 6y ago

What this article doesn’t seem to realize is that they don’t have a seat at the table. If you haven’t been invited then you don’t count. Look at how Stanford Medicine allocated its allocation of the vaccine. It allocated it to administrators first then apologized when it was exposed. What is left unsaid is that they never gave up their power to decide who gets the vaccine. Have you heard of anyone giving up their place in line for the vaccine?

exabrial 6y ago

Let someone pay 20,000x the price of a good or service if they want to. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. This drives early returns on investment, leading to cheaper and widely distributed drugs in the future.

rightbyte 6y ago
Money is not an issue here. Current resources is.
- exabrial 6y ago
  Doesn't it take money to increase the supply of a good? A manufacturer making bank on a product is going to reinvest that into his supply chain, increasing the overall supply... a good thing for everyone, which eventually, depresses prices and makes said goods commodity and affordable for everyone.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The existing purchase guarantees completely swamp any extra demand from private bidders. Say you got a million (or 10 million) people to pay extra (it'd be lot of people at that point); the manufacturing demand wouldn't go up any, and they would probably just delay delivery of some other doses for a week (or a month).
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    I think this includes a number of questionable assumptions. 1) The money would go to the manufacturer. 2) The supply limiting factor can be addressed in a reasonable timeline 3) The demand will exist at the time when supply is increased. 4) The price is a limiting factor. As far as I know, lead times for this drug manufacturing equipment is usually >1 yr and the demand will not be there when it arrives. All of the vaccines currently cost $2-20.
high_density 6y ago
ditto this. if some rich people are willing to pay 20,000x, then that roughly means (20,000 - 1) more vaccine for others (per rich person willing to pay, that is.) The other option is paying with tax-money... btw, another view: why fix it to 20,000x? why not auction?

ouid 6y ago

Jesus, when did economists get so single minded? The benefits of a vaccine are almost exclusively from the network effects. It is almost purely externality. Since when are markets capable of efficiently allocating externalities? Likelihood to spread the virus does not correlate with personal incentive to get vaccinated. There might be a market scheme for allocating the virus that does align with society's incentives, but I would bet dollars to pennies that that solution is basically just democratically elected government.

war1025 6y ago

Given the number of people I know personally who have already gotten the vaccine, it seems to me that they aren't being terribly stingy with handing it out to people. I would expect the even moderately wealthy to be able to cut in line and acquire it whether or not they admit to it publicly.

Traster 6y ago

This is just not a serious idea. Firstly, if you do decide you want to suggest diverting the vaccine from people at high risk to people at low risk in order to raise revenue then the least you can do is run the numbers on how many more of those high risk people will die. Secondly "this isn't political! It's either a free-market solution or a tax". No. It's not a free-market solution, it's the governemnt setting an arbitrary price for a product they have a legal monopoly on, it's also not a tax since it's entirely optional for people to pay it. Thirdly, the comparison to Delaney is massively off - Delaney's plan would save nearly $100Bn compared to the current solution of selling the vaccine and congress being forced to hand out $2000 stimulus checks. Becuase the checks weren't really about getting people to take the vaccine, it was about providing the stimulus checks that are already going to happen, but tying them to something. Finally, if you're rich enough to give $100k for a vaccine you're probably rich enough to find a way of getting it somewhere else, so really what we're saying is that you're asking them to make a massive donation for something that they don't need fron you.

yodsanklai 6y ago

I'm curious how much people would be willing to pay for this vaccine if they had to. As someone who is not in an at-risk category and who don't work on the front line, I don't think I'd be willing to pay very much.

SamBorick 6y ago

Counterpoint: No. Use the vaccine to protect the people who are actually in danger. If a billionaire gets covid they can get the super special sci-fi insta-cure that every other person in power gets. The solution to a public health communications issue is not 'get influencers on board' it's to amplify the science communicators who are already doing it, and public policy.

only_friends 6y ago

This article is morally wrong, but the rich is going to get it before the rest of us anyway. I say give it to them, you can't change the fact they will get it first, at least let them beta test it. After most people get it, the risks disappear.

aphextron 6y ago

The author seems to be overstating the actual value of the vaccine. The fair market value is probably somewhere around $10k right now. Any more than that, and you're rich enough to just hop a private jet to New Zealand and hang out with other millionaires right now. The people who would actually pay for this are the 9%; those with just enough means to drop a serious sum, but not enough to abstract away reality the way the 1% can.

matz1 6y ago

I have no problem, let them pay more and subsidize for the rest of the people. At least for covid, the risk is low enough to not matter. I would happily be the last line to get one. Besides I'm not sure supply constraint would be a big problem, i think there are quite lot of people that understand the actual risk of getting seriously sick from covid and wouldn't be that eager to get a vaccine.

nickpp 6y ago

If we lived in a free market-driven world, there would be no question about this. The vaccine would be allocated and priced just like any other scarce resource should be allocated and priced: by demand and supply. After all, it's the strategy that allowed us to feed and shelter a planet of 8 billion. But in reality the vaccine distribution is made through policy and politics. Because this strategy worked so well back in March, with the PPE. If this doesn't prove that we live under socialism, I don't know what will. So check if you have a friend in high places, if you are one of the chosen ones. Because in socialism resources are allocated through the good old power networks. Relations, bureaucracy and so on. Who you know becomes more important than what you know, who you do more important than what you do. It's a brave new world and I hope your dossier is perfect. But don't worry: you'll easily buy a dose on the black market.

colpabar 6y ago

Does anyone think this wasn't already the plan? The ultra rich and influential tend to be friends with others who are ultra rich and/or influential. Remember when all those celebrities were testing positive back when no one was able to get a test? edit: I don't mean it will happen in the way the article describes, rather it will happen because the ultra rich tend to be friends with powerful people who have access to these types of things.

kippinitreal 6y ago

IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it) so we might as well decrimalize it and make a dollar off of them in the process. I’d rather encourage them to give more money to the government than to see how low they go to validate their “essentialness”. It’s not even clear to me that this is such a terrible way to allocate this scarce resources - if the NBA wants to spend a billion dollars on some of the first doses so they can go to work (and subsidize 50m other doses in the process) that doesn’t seem so wrong? For every 100 doses auction off 1 to pay for the other 99 (maybe even more!).

samizdis 6y ago
> IMO the best reason for this isn’t even to raise funds, but rather because the rich/connected are going to do this anyways (and get away with it) An interesting point, and one made in another STAT article [1] from earlier this month - which is linked to from the more recent article: ‘There absolutely will be a black market’: How the rich and privileged can skip the line for Covid-19 vaccines [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-can-skip-the-line-for-covid19-vaccines/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/03/how-rich-and-privileged-...
aczerepinski 6y ago
I want the NBA to get theirs so I have something to entertain me while I’m waiting six more months for my turn.

_aleph2c_ 6y ago

It could be a marketing campaign paid for by the "greedy rich" to improve the health of the system. American's love celebrities, so if celebrities pay for access, the common American will want what is temporarily denied from them. There is a historical precedent, Antoine Parmentier tricked the French people into adopting the potato in 1786, by placing armed guards around potato fields: https://www.damninteresting.com/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-spuds-of-war/ https://www.damninteresting.com/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-s...

yodsanklai 6y ago
> Antoine Parmentier tricked the French people into adopting the potato They should try a similar trick now. It seems many French people are reluctant to get vaccinated.
- phtrivier 6y ago
  Unfortunately it bas become an identity marker (https://www.letelegramme.fr/france/les-francais-refractaires-au-vaccin-anti-covid-ce-que-disent-vraiment-les-sondages-01-12-2020-12665744.php https://www.letelegramme.fr/france/les-francais-refractaires...), so it's too late to make people change their mind. The "good" news is that elderly, mildly conservative people are more prone to get vaccinated, so at least, if the vaccines are as efficient as hoped in the long run, it should release some pressure on the hospitals. Which might make it possible to release some of the restrictions, which might just calm people down a bit and let everyone have a cooler debate, possibly in a year or two.Then, we'll have a presidential election and(no kidding) a referendum about making the constitution talk about climate change. It will be less profitable to spew conspiracy theory about vaccines, so laymen will take their shots, and we'll get crazy and insane about something else. Maybe a world cup or something ?

Arnt 6y ago

It's a bit disgusting when influential people who talked down the disease now (want to) cheat in the vaccine queue. But maybe it'll convince some people who listened to them that the vaccines are good.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

I expect there will be plenty of vaccine to around pretty soon. There are five more manufacturers which were funded by operation warp seed and are various stages of development. There is also the Chinese vaccine SinoVac, which has stated there will be capacity to manufacture 600 million doses a year by the end of 2020, with another 350 million doses/yr in Indonesia and Brazil.

xnx 6y ago

Or let those who have the option to take vaccines under the current system auction off their spot.