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Lumifer comments on A Cost- Benefit Analysis of Immunizing Healthy Adults Against Influenza - Less Wrong
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Well, if we're doing the calculation specifically for me, we can put in more precise numbers. If I stay at home sick for week, my income will drop by $0. So, replace $1000 with $0. I also have health insurance which will pay for the hospital visit, but I'm sure there will be some co-pays, let's say $200. So...
flu shot: $30+(0.02*0)+(0.0001*200) = $30.02
no flu shot: $0+(0.05*0)+(0.00025*200) = $0.05
Ooops :-D
Well, if you don't value your health at all, then this seems valid.
OP's analysis has a term for quality of life issues stemming from the illness; it just happens to be a fourth of the magnitude of lost productivity ($200 vs. $800). The latter ends up dominating the calculation. There's also a term for the costs of palliative care, estimated at $100, but that looks a little sketchy to me; a package of Theraflu and some tissues and cough drops would run maybe $20.
On the other hand, Lumifer's health insurance would probably cover the flu shot. Mine would.
Virtually all health insurance will also pay for the flu shot (since paying for a flu shot for all their members is less expensive than paying for their hospital stays). So:
flu shot: $0+(0.02*0)+(0.0001*200) = $0.02
no flu shot: $0+(0.05*0)+(0.00025*200) = $0.05
...percentage-wise, that's huge.
Evidently, socialized medicine (in the UK) does not.
LOL.
Huh. Well, that's unexpected.
Only some of the $1000 cost was lost income. You are, of course, welcome to substitute your own numbers for the expected cost of self-care and your subjective disutility of being sick for a week, but setting those to zero seems implausible: that is, if there were an instant flu-curing pill, I strongly doubt you would be unwilling to buy it at any price.