3 ms·
Saying yes to one person's expensive treatment is saying no to 4 people's cheap treatment.
by eternauta3k 4y ago
Saying yes to one person's expensive treatment is saying no to 4 people's cheap treatment.
- tialaramex 4y agoIt's not that simple. Economically it's an investment. Twenty years ago I had Hodgkins Lymphoma. Obviously the NHS fixed that. This was doubtless quite expensive, it needed a team of experts, expensive chemicals and radiotherapy machinery. But, if they don't they're out a young productive software engineer because Hodgkins kills people, even assuming you're so callous your response is to just immediately put me down like a dog so as to reduce the cost of palliative care or diverting resources from relatives - Whereas since they fixed it that's maybe 30-40 years of economic productivity and ensuing tax income they're getting. Now, obviously not every such intervention is literally profitable in a financial sense, but I chose my case because even boiled down to simply money this actually can make sense anyway. If you agree it made sense to fix me (and I don't see why you wouldn't) then beyond that it's only about value judgements.