I've been thinking we should treat it as a free-rider problem. Given that eradicating diseases like this really comes down to herd-immunity, what we really have is free-riders unfairly benefitting from the slight risk that others are taking through a certain medical intervention.

What gives a certain person the right to benefit from everyone else's vaccinations while refusing to subject their own children to the minimal risk? We don't need to prove that vaccines are "safe", just safer than a frikken measles epidemic... and then tax the snot out of everyone who choses to forgo that risk and expense by pushing it off onto others. Internalize that external cost and I bet you'll see a whole lot of zealotry dry right up in the cold face of monetary reality.

I agree that if medical treatment for measles was put in a more punitive price range (depending on vaccination status, and economic background of course), I could imagine a significant drop in people who choose not to vaccinate. Use that extra money to immunize people who actually want it, but can't pay for it. Use it for programs that teach about the dangers of letting your child go unvaccinated, both for them and for other children.

The problem is the kind of fucktards who don't get their child vaccinated might then delay or avoid treatment of their highly contagious child...

This is why this cost must be front-loaded. There should be a penalty paid when the vaccine is refused, much like the penalty we're contemplating now for people who refuse to enroll in the pending national health system. The logic would be the same. By refusing this preventative treatment, you're likely to incur a public cost in the future. We'd just like you to pay for that up front.

Maybe if people (physicians) can track down the patient zero child of a given outbreak, have downstream parents of affected children turn and sue the negligent parent(s) for tort, if it's proven they denied vaccination to their child(ren), then maybe this unfounded practice can be eradicated.

Would they actually have a case, or are you joking?

Just slightly more than wishful thinking. Some legal thinkers have posited that it's not that far-fetched of an idea, given that epidemiologists can track down a patient zero.[1,2]

[1]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...

[2]http://www.naturalhealth365.com/vaccine_dangers/lawsuits.htm...

To be honest, I think it's fine to let evolution take care of this. Deaths from measles are disproportionately the unvaccinated, which means that over time they will either die off or wise up. Yes, there's some collateral damage in the form of newborns or other people who can't be vaccinated - but newborns are at risk for a lot of other things as well, and once they get past the critical first year of life you can take care of this problem on a personal level by vaccinating your own kids.

You obviously don't have kids. Also, the article said 92% of those that got measles were unvaccinated, meaning 8% had been vaccinated. And it's not just newborns... 40% of kids under 5 who get measles need to be hospitalized.

Finally, it's not the kids that are choosing to be unvaccinated, it's their idiot parents. It's not fair to punish the kids for their parents' behavior. If it was the parents getting the measles, I'd be all for it.