Obamacare – What is the Value of Your Life?

Well, I’ve wondered for a while. With the rationed health care, I’ve been wondering how much the government will spend to keep a person from dying. Let’s call it the “COLA-adjusted yearly value of avoiding death”. For fun, spell that out. The irony is deep. The Cost of LIVING adjusted value of avoiding DEATH.

For the first time I’ve seen the number published. Page 21 of September 21,2009 National Review. (Drum roll…) $45,000.00. Not bad, I guess. It could have been lower. Some people seem worth more than that, some less. Like A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, where “all the children are above average”, I imagine most people are worth more than this average. Of course, I’m sort of on the high side.

In the pursuit of managing health, we’ve drifted to managing health care. And in the process, we’ve really become rather sick. Sick in heart and spirit. A key point surfaces on page 20 of the above article. It’s National health care. And so comparisons are done nationally. If we spend more money on Harriet in El Paso than Francine in McAllen, then we have to fix it. Why does this require a fix?

I’m a State’s-rights kind of guy. What’s wrong with different states being different? What’s wrong if different cities are different – cost more or less in any given way? It gives folks a chance to live where they want to. If you want subsidized life and that kind of lifestyle, go live in that state. If you want something else, live in a different state. Such is a character of life. Such is the character of freedom. Isn’t that what this country was founded on? Freedom, not sameness. Who said everybody has to be the same?

National health care plans require national comparisons. Why is this good? Show me what moral compass or religion advises adherents to compare themselves to everybody else and make sure they get as good. Actually, in this area I agree with Rush Limbaugh when he says a lot of leftish or socialist programs are not about making everybody feel equally good; it’s about making sure everybody hurts as bad.