David brings up an interesting point. To what extent should we allow market forces or even then the marketized rationality of cost-benefit analysis determined questions, which are inherently moral.
Wouldn't the logic of cost-benefit analysis suggests that perhaps more resources should go into child pornography -- to mention the sort of thing which is currently in the news. If people want to spend money for such stuff, the market would say fine. But I guess a whole lot of people who would argue in favor of applying cost-benefit analysis to medical care would not advocate market logic for child pornography, which they consider to be a moral issue. Yet healthcare has a serious moral component, as well as an obvious economic dimension. The economics of health care, however, are pretty perverted in the United States since we pay so much and gets so little. The absence of the moral dimension in the healthcare debate is surprising. Morality bubbles up in all the wrong places in the political debates, as if homosexual marriage represents a greater threat than lousy health-care and care for and about the welfare of unborn children seems to exceed that of children after they leave the womb. On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 09:40:47AM -0700, David B. Shemano wrote: > Gar Lipow writes: > > >> Recently conducted large scale research found that: > >> In a given unit the optimal workload for a nurse was four patients. > >> Increasing the workload to 6 resulted in patients being 14% more > >> likely to die within 30 days of admission. A workload of 8 patients > >> versus 4 was associated with a 31% increase in mortality.[ 4] > > Why wouldn't the optimal workload be one nurse for one patient? Or two > nurses for one patient? Is there an underlying cost-benefit analysis that > needs to be disclosed? > > David Shemano -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
