Who would even put a price on the cost of a human life? If you don't want to rescue someone on Mount Everest then help out a child in Yemen. They didn't even choose to put themselves in harm's way

Health economists. It's their job

Its not that hard to put a price on it. As an avid mountaineer, I would attempt a rescue for a cool 10M USD.

Curious of extent to what climbing have you done and what extent of alpinism you have been around if you think price is the right way to gauge a rescue attempt? Im a climber myself and while not really interested in alpinism I know quite certainly that most rescue attempts aren't prevented or attempted because of monetary reasons. Alpinist (http://www.alpinist.com/newswire/) probably has at least a story or two a year of rescue attempts on a variety of places less 'dangerous' than himilayas that are well funded that result in nothing or sometimes pilot/guide deaths.

Just tell the climbers in advance they will not mount rescue missions for people who do not meet a minimum threshold of competence and preparation.

How about not mounting publicly funded rescue missions at all? You can pay for insurance if you want someone to risk their life to come get you.

they already do this. theres a huge amount of luck that factors into a summit for a ton of climbs. they spend weeks just acclimating let alone the amount of preparation prior to their climbs (and the fact that people who want to just pay to summit are not physically capable or even allowed up, theres actual physical confrontations by guides to head back more often than you'd think).

theres a reason people are left for dead and walk back to camps in the middle of the night (beck weathers is the de facto example) and its because they are so incredibly competent and prepared that they are able to survive but at extreme costs to themselves and those around