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CCC comments on A Cost- Benefit Analysis of Immunizing Healthy Adults Against Influenza - LessWrong
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Comments (81)
Let us assume that your "functioning immune system" gives you a 95% chance of avoiding the flu, as opposed to the population's average 90% chance (such that your immune system is significantly stronger than average).
The immunisation still has a 60% efficiency; your odds of not getting the flu with the immunisation are thus 98%. Assuming the ration of hospitilasation/non-hospitalisation is as given in the article:
The expected cost of the flu shot is thus $30+(0.02*1000)+(0.0001*7000) = $50.7
The expected cost of not getting the flu shot is then $0+(0.05*1000)+(0.00025*7000) = $51.75
So, with every assumption made in favour of reducing the expected cost of not getting the shot, even more so than in the article, it is still more expensive, on average, than getting the shot.
By a dollar and five cents, according to your calculation. That doesn't seem even worth the time talking about it.
If that many assumptions are slanted in the direction of conclusion A, and the data is still in favour of conclusion B, even by such a minor amount, then that suggests that conclusion B is (significantly) liklier to be the correct course of action than A.
In other words, once we start factoring in the potential cost of death; the cost to society of your spreading the flu further; assuming an immune system suitable to a human and not to Hercules; then that dollar and five cents is likely to grow to a respectable sum.
Unless he has an above-average income to go with his above-average immune system.
Wasn't the time to take it included in the costs analysis?
Yes, but not the time to read the discussion we're all having. In personal finances, $1.05 is below noise level for anyone not in grinding poverty. I can save that by skipping a coffee.
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.