Re:Bittorrent Launches Distributed Live Stream
by william42 on Saturday November 12, 2011 @06:37PM
(#3229274)
Well, at the scales we're dealing with, healthcare is an infinite resource. Emergency rooms in the United States cannot turn anyone down, and even uninsured Americans will end up going to the hospital when something serious happens, because the choice is between debt and debilitating illness, people will pick the former.
Wouldn't it be a lot better if we could spend more resources on preventing disease by removing the disincentive for going to the doctor for early detection? Not to mention, with communicable diseases, herd immunity is a very real thing.
A market is just a means of determining distribution of a rivalrous resource. If it wasn't money, it would be something else (influence, political power, etc).
Having money, in general, is a proxy for the ability to create wealth. Thus, if you can't save everyone, and you have to use some mechanism for choosing who to save, then choosing to save the rich is a decent proxy for saving the people who create wealth. I happen to think that's a better system than some of the others ('who you know', 'how "good" your politics are')