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Why Is It So Expensive to Save Lives?

6 points by bemmu 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago
Isn’t it because a life is worth a lot? There might be a few lives you can save for $50 but those opportunities will get snapped up fast so the bulk of lives saved will be at the high end of the willingness to pay?
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Also, there are 121 million unintended pregnancies a year globally. Is it cheaper to help women avoid unintended pregnancies (robust access to modern contraceptives, financial/household empowerment) before the (expensive to mitigate) suffering is kicked off for a lifetime? TLDR Empowering and educating women is a key driver in this effort. https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-unintended-global-crisis-says-new-unfpa-report https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
- lupire 5y ago
  The bulk of marginal lives saved will be at supply-demand curve point of the value of a life (as valued by the "buyer" -- so you will pay a lot, your family a bit less, your friends a bit less, your employer a bunch less, and a stranger a lot less; and rich people will pay more because they can afford to be less efficient)
newbamboo 5y ago
Lawyers?
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  That is not what the article says. The article says: ‘you have to buy a lot of mosquito nets to save a life’ I am sure they spend some money on legal overhead not to mention on corruption in the countries they work in, but that doesn’t change the basic economics.
lupire 5y ago
In the middle of the article they claim that for each dollar you spend on saving a life, someone else will stop giving 30c to save lives because they consider the problem solved.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Reality is complicated. That's why. Silver Bullet solutions presume reality is simple and simplistic. Reality is nonlinear and has feedback loops.
fuzzfactor 5y ago
Apparently those saving the lives have to function in the same marketplace as those working to increase the cost of living.
imtringued 5y ago
It sounds like people have tunnel vision in regards to death statistics. Medical deaths are easy to count and record. Partial "death" i.e. loss of limbs, senses, cognition, muscle control, emotion (happiness) is not as easy to capture in a single statistic. The benefits a malaria net provides goes way beyond preventing death. The vast majority of people that have malaria do not die of that disease. They only have a significantly reduced quality of life which isn't as exciting as preventing medical death even though you could make the valid argument that a life without malaria counts as a saved life.

6 points by bemmu 5y ago

Isn’t it because a life is worth a lot? There might be a few lives you can save for $50 but those opportunities will get snapped up fast so the bulk of lives saved will be at the high end of the willingness to pay?

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Also, there are 121 million unintended pregnancies a year globally. Is it cheaper to help women avoid unintended pregnancies (robust access to modern contraceptives, financial/household empowerment) before the (expensive to mitigate) suffering is kicked off for a lifetime? TLDR Empowering and educating women is a key driver in this effort. https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-unintended-global-crisis-says-new-unfpa-report https://www.unfpa.org/press/nearly-half-all-pregnancies-are-... https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
lupire 5y ago
The bulk of marginal lives saved will be at supply-demand curve point of the value of a life (as valued by the "buyer" -- so you will pay a lot, your family a bit less, your friends a bit less, your employer a bunch less, and a stranger a lot less; and rich people will pay more because they can afford to be less efficient)

newbamboo 5y ago

Lawyers?

PaulHoule 5y ago
That is not what the article says. The article says: ‘you have to buy a lot of mosquito nets to save a life’ I am sure they spend some money on legal overhead not to mention on corruption in the countries they work in, but that doesn’t change the basic economics.

lupire 5y ago

In the middle of the article they claim that for each dollar you spend on saving a life, someone else will stop giving 30c to save lives because they consider the problem solved.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Reality is complicated. That's why. Silver Bullet solutions presume reality is simple and simplistic. Reality is nonlinear and has feedback loops.

fuzzfactor 5y ago

Apparently those saving the lives have to function in the same marketplace as those working to increase the cost of living.

imtringued 5y ago

It sounds like people have tunnel vision in regards to death statistics. Medical deaths are easy to count and record. Partial "death" i.e. loss of limbs, senses, cognition, muscle control, emotion (happiness) is not as easy to capture in a single statistic. The benefits a malaria net provides goes way beyond preventing death. The vast majority of people that have malaria do not die of that disease. They only have a significantly reduced quality of life which isn't as exciting as preventing medical death even though you could make the valid argument that a life without malaria counts as a saved life.