Ever wondered how much is life really worth? Super Freakonomics takes a look into this timeless question. With the healthcare system ( medicare, Medicaid, etc) eating away the U.S. Budget, how much money can be allocated to extending the lives of dying patients of a few weeks or a month? A study from VCU shows chemotherapy for metastasized breast cancer patients only extends their lives by 2 months. However, it costs on average $360k for this treatment. That's close to $6k per day.
If chemotherapy cured breast cancer, this procedure would be miraculous. However, why not allocate this expense to finding a cure... In the short term this would detrimental but think of all the lives saved in the future. Instead of extending terminally I'll patients lives in the next x amount of years (until a cure is discovered) you would save z amount of lives in the future which would'v been lost if a cure had not been discovered as quickly. Food for thought
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