I mostly agree with this perspective with regards to the “moral imperative”.
But apart from that, it seems to me that a good case can be made if we use personal health spending as a reference class.
Even if we only consider currently achievable DALY gains, it is quite notable that we have a method to gain several healthy life-years for a price of maybe $20,000/healthy year (and actually these gains should even be heritable themselves!).
I do not know the numbers for common health interventions, but this should already be somewhat comparable.
update: Quick estimate: US per capita health spending in 2019 was $11,582 according to CDC. If the US health spending doubles life expectancy compared to having no health system, this is comparable to $20,000/healthy year.
I mostly agree with this perspective with regards to the “moral imperative”.
But apart from that, it seems to me that a good case can be made if we use personal health spending as a reference class.
Even if we only consider currently achievable DALY gains, it is quite notable that we have a method to gain several healthy life-years for a price of maybe $20,000/healthy year (and actually these gains should even be heritable themselves!).
I do not know the numbers for common health interventions, but this should already be somewhat comparable.
update: Quick estimate: US per capita health spending in 2019 was $11,582 according to CDC. If the US health spending doubles life expectancy compared to having no health system, this is comparable to $20,000/healthy year.