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A comment on A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests. Parent comment

Re:A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests by ikeboy on Sunday September 20, 2015 @04:08PM (#10248858)
The value of a human life is not infinite, at least not in health budgets. Insurance companies set a non-infinite value to decide what procedures to cover.

In theory, you could calculate the exact value provided by this drug (under the QALY model).

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Re:A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests by learc83 on Sunday September 20, 2015 @04:39PM (#10249000)
The value of a human life to the individual who's life it belongs cannot be calculated in economic terms (at least for most people) because it is unbounded, i.e., there is not a price that most people will accept for their life. The economic value of a human life to society can be calculated.

Under your theory a fair method to price life saving drugs doesn't exist. The person getting the drugs will effectively extract infinite value while the company will only extract a finite value.

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Re:A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests by icebraining on Sunday September 20, 2015 @05:32PM (#10249226)
The value of a human life to the individual who's life it belongs cannot be calculated in economic terms (at least for most people) because it is unbounded, i.e., there is not a price that most people will accept for their life.

Not really true, I'm afraid. People killing themselves (or allowing others to kill them) to ensure a payout to their families happens with some regularity.

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Re:A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests by learc83 on Sunday September 20, 2015 @06:03PM (#10249351)
1. My qualifier "most people" covers that situation, because it is very very rare.

2. Usually this happens because they place a higher value on their children's life and well being than their own. So even in the case were someone does place a value on their own life, it's only in relation to someone else's life.

The case of 2 is interesting because it shows that of the people who would accept a finite sum for their own life, very few would accept a finite sum for their chidren's life.

Since paying for the child's healthcare is the responsibility of the parent in a free market, we are back to my previous point that their is no fair free market way to price life saving drugs.

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