This post, like many others around this theme, revolves around the rationality of cryonics from the subjective standpoint of a potential cryopatient, and it seems to assume a certain set of circumstances for that patient: relatively young, healthy, functional in society.

I've been wondering for a while about the rationality of cryonics from a societal standpoint, as applied to potential cryopatients in significantly different circumstances; two categories specifically stand out, death row inmates and terminal patients.

This article cites the cost of a death row inmate (over serving a life sentence) to $90K. This is a case where we already allow that society may drastically curtail an individual's right to control their own destiny. It would cost less to place someone in cryonic suspension than to execute him, and in so doing we would provide a chance, however small, that a wrongful conviction could be reversed in the future.

As for terminal patients, this article says:

Aggressive treatments attempting to prolong life in terminally ill people typically continue far too long. Reflecting this overaggressive end-of-life treatment, the Health Care Finance Administration reported that about 25% of Medicare funds are spent in the last 6 months of life (about $68 billion in 2003 or $42,000 per dying patient). Actually, the last 6 months of a Medicare recipient's life consumes about $80,000 for medical services, since Medicare pays only 53% of the bill. Dying cancer patients cost twice the average amount or about $160,000.

These costs are comparable to that charged for cryopreservation. It seems to me that it would be rational (as a cost reduction measure) to offer patients diagnosed with a likely terminal illness the voluntary option of being cryopreserved. At worst, if cryonics doesn't work, this amounts to an "assisted suicide", something that many progressive groups are already lobbying for.