Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Value of a Human Life

There is an old Jewish teaching that if you put a single human life on one side of a scale, and the rest of the world on the other side, the scale would be balanced equally.

But some of Washington’s newly-elected representatives intend to take the wisdom of this teaching and tear it apart. For instance, when they speak of “cutting fraud and waste in our healthcare systems” all for America’s “fiscal future”, what they really mean is that the lives of over 45 million people receiving Medicare and over 50 million receiving Medicaid services will be made harder and more confusing.

95 million people – babies, grandparents, and the neighbor that had an accident

The new class of lawmakers has put a divisive spin on the programs, services and protections that have helped support the needs of the aged, the poorest and the disabled, while assuring. While we contemplate the inherent unfairness of these policies, perhaps a good question to ask is: should the value of human life be calculated on how much we contribute to the GDP?

Have you ever wondered what your life is worth in pure financial terms?

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the price of an American’s life is currently $9.1 million dollars. Over at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, a human life is only worth $7.9 million dollars. Either option, however, is arguably better than in India, where the World Bank has estimated the value of a human life at less than $5,000.

In 1956, the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) was invented by two health economists. This measurement of “disease burden” quantifies and assesses the value of medical interventions based on the expected quality of life and length of life that will be lived. If a medical procedure would result in a life outcome that includes permanent disability, the QALY ratio would be significantly lower than for someone whose life outcome is expected to result in a full recovery and ‘perfect health’. So based on this calculation, those who are most fragile, most ill, and usually least able to pay may not be worth saving. This harsh and variable ranking system is used to allocate healthcare resources.

But how do we calculate human worth? How do we determine who lives well or even who lives at all?

Medicaid and Medicare have both been unfairly derided as an expensive runaway train of care for the poor and elderly that should be cut and cut and cut. In fact, millions of Americans have benefited from funds that have sustained a wide variety of Medicaid and Medicare programs without regard to ranking or life expectancy. Under a new plan being promoted in Congress, America’s Medicaid and Medicare recipients, whose fundamental value and equality should never be questioned, may not have the health care choices that they need.

Access to healthcare services should not be a lucky privilege that should only be enjoyed by those who can pay for it, or those with the highest ranking of future health.

- Kate F.