03-22-2020, 08:16 PM
** 22-Mar-2020 World View: Cost-Benefit Analysis
It doesn't make any difference what the cost of medical care was then
or is now. As I wrote in the article, there will be two million
deaths in America. That translates to about eight million
hospitalizations. The medical industry -- the hospitals and the
insurance companies -- will be overwhelmed. With limited resources
spread over eight million patients, the cost per patient will be close
to zero. Beyond that, a cost-benefit analysis is meaningless.
Navigator Wrote:> One of the big differences between now and the Spanish flu period
> is the cost of medical care. Back then, it wasn't that much. Now
> it is astronomical. The 2019 rates of health care expenditure were
> already destroying the economy. We cannot afford putting 5-10% of
> the country into an ICU. Plus these "aid" packages are just
> contributing to the global debt bomb that is already in place.
> The current health insurance setup cannot weather this. The
> insurance companies will all go bankrupt. Then no-one will have
> health insurance. Which will probably lead to health care
> nationalization, which will lead to even worse growth to debt and
> serious degradation of health care standards.
> At some point, you do have do do a cost benefit analysis. If
> someone produces a million worth of value during their lifetime,
> but uses ten million worth of health care, you can absorb that so
> long as this is an abnormality. You cannot absorb this cost if it
> is common (and 10% of the population being in a similar situation
> would make it common). What can and what should a society
> afford?
It doesn't make any difference what the cost of medical care was then
or is now. As I wrote in the article, there will be two million
deaths in America. That translates to about eight million
hospitalizations. The medical industry -- the hospitals and the
insurance companies -- will be overwhelmed. With limited resources
spread over eight million patients, the cost per patient will be close
to zero. Beyond that, a cost-benefit analysis is meaningless.