The Value of Human Life?
5 Million Dollars?
What is the value of human life? We can argue that it is priceless,
but the risk regulators of governments don't have the luxury
of simple answers that feel good. Government agencies in the
United States, for example, are said to value life at 5 to 7
million dollars when calculating which life-saving regulations
to enact.
Is it fair to put a number on human life like this? It is
perhaps the fairest way to resolve the legal issues of safety
regulations. After all, any one of us could imagine a safer environment
for society at an unlimited cost, but we know we don't have unlimited
funds. So of course we want to avoid regulations that will cost
us 100 million dollars per life saved if that money could be
spent to save 20 times as many lives. It also calls into question
the billions-per-life-saved that Superfund environmental cleanups
cost. How many thousands more lives could be saved if we used
that money in other ways?
Regulators can't avoid doing such "value of life"
calculations, then - at least if they want to be rational and
efficient in their life-saving work. Politically this is a tough
sell, though. For example, in 2003 the Environmental Protection
Agency did an analysis of various measures which not only "put
a price" on lives saved, but actually put a different price
on different groups of people.
Specifically, they decided that those older than 70 were worth
37% less than younger citizens when calculating cost-worthy changes
in laws. They probably figured that saving a 20-year-old's life
saved a lot more good years than doing the same for a 70-year-old.
But as you can imagine, this was not popular when it was discovered.
It is fascinating how these numbers are arrived at. It's even
more logical than you might think. It doesn't start with anything
as dark as a bunch of regulators voting on what a life is worth.
It also isn't based on the lifetime earnings of a person, or
the amount of taxes they might pay. The calculating begins with
people's own life choices about the risks they take or avoid.
In other words what people are willing to pay to reduce risks
of death determines the "value" assigned to a life
itself. For example, if we start with the average menial labor,
and then look at the premium paid for riskier jobs, we might
find that a person has an additional risk of dying of 1 in 5,000
with a given job (each year), and the job pays about $1,400 more
per year than average jobs at this skill level. Each year, then,
1 out of 20,000 workers will die, and employers will pay an additional
7 million dollars ($1,400 x 5,000) versus average-risk jobs,
to entice employees to work for them.
Of course nobody would take 7 million dollars in exchange
for certain death. Some will take the additional risk for that
additional pay, though, and others will "pay" or give
up that additional $1,400 in order to reduce their risk by taking
the lower-paying jobs. So for a lack of anything better, this
it is a measure of what people will pay to reduce risk.
It may seem very harsh to look at it this way, but it is no
different in other areas of life. You know that a buying certain
models of cars reduces your risk of death, but you are only willing
to pay just so much to do so, right? If you could slightly reduce
your risk of heart disease with a $1 per month pill you would
probably pay the price, but what if it cost you $500 per month
(or a total change of your diet)?
In the end we decide as individuals in a society what the
value of human life is in the abstract. This is true not only
in terms of the basis for regulators figures, but in all of our
cultural and political decisions as well. We are all willing
to accept tens of thousands of deaths for the convenience of
higher speed limits, for example. Perhaps 20,000 lives annually
would be saved if nobody drove over 20 miles per hour. The costs
of that speed limit is too high a price to pay though, both in
our own inconvenience and in the higher prices we would pay for
all goods transported by truck.
Just wait until we have universal health care paid for by
the government. Then we'll really have some questions about the
value of human life. Never is money unlimited, and every dollar
spent could be spent in other ways, so consider this; A treatment
is available that could save a few hundred 75-year-olds annually,
adding an average of a year to their lives. Spend the money,
yes or no? What if there is a way to save the lives of a few
hundred babies annually using that same money? Does the additional
70 years we add to their lives outweigh the year in the first
example? Somebody will have to make that decision.
You might like to imagine that we can have both treatments
- and we can in a specific sense, if we so choose. But again,
there is no limit to the number of ways the money might be spent,
yet limited money, so someone's preferred treatment has to be
left out in favor of some other - even if that means death.
The value of human life? It might become a big issue when
people start to realize not only the necessity of the calculations
made by regulators, but the "risk cost" of the decisions
made in their personal lives. That new boat might have someday
paid for a life-saving medical treatment, after all. But then
quality of life matters too - not just number of years. So what
is the value of your life, and how have you been measuring it
so far? |
