Interesting read. In the same vein. What I was imagining is a computational market, relying on the ability to do lots of complex trades at high speeds, and AI/ML. But much of that difference is explained by the 20 years.
I also reviewed some of his prototype code for a combinatorial prediction market around 10 years ago. I agree that these are promising ideas and I liked this post a lot.
As someone living in a universal/governmental healthcare country, I think we are doing this. If I am healthy and working, I am an asset for the state, pay taxes / social security. If I am ill or disabled, they gotta pay me. If I am dead, I don’t pay them.
Of course it is not ideal first of all because of the usual problem of government: politicians, bureaucrats don’t get a dividend from the profits of the state, they are not incentivized to maximize profitability. Secondarily, there are some incentive pitfalls like I am cheaper for them dead than pulling disability pay. Once it would look likely I will never work again their incentive would be providing zero healthcare.
So while it is not ideal, the basic idea of people paying something to an organization every month or year when they are healthy and working, and the healthcare costs are paid by that organization so they want to keep their client healthy and working and paying is there, and it can be tweaked. Part of the story is that people even when retired should keep paying. From this angle life insurance is better than social security.
However I think there is no workaround for the fact that once you have 5 years to live and extending that to 10 years costs a lot, whatever tax or insurance premiums you would pay in the second 5 years would not cover it and thus the organization has no incentive to extend your life. This can only be done by strict contracts or by politics. A third option is kids.
Let’s go a big sci-fi here, we make a pill that extends female fertility up to about 60 easy, and thus we can assume most people will have kids again because it can just as treated like an early retirement.
The point is, if people have kids, you can treat families as immortal or long-lived persons. You can work out a scheme that if dad’s life is not extended the kids will take their insurance elsewhere.
There’s research suggesting that in developing countries, increased healthcare spending doesn’t improve health outcomes like longevity. Don’t know how good the research is though.
Robin Hanson proposed much the same over 20 years ago in “Buy Health, Not Health Care”.
Interesting read. In the same vein. What I was imagining is a computational market, relying on the ability to do lots of complex trades at high speeds, and AI/ML. But much of that difference is explained by the 20 years.
I also reviewed some of his prototype code for a combinatorial prediction market around 10 years ago. I agree that these are promising ideas and I liked this post a lot.
As someone living in a universal/governmental healthcare country, I think we are doing this. If I am healthy and working, I am an asset for the state, pay taxes / social security. If I am ill or disabled, they gotta pay me. If I am dead, I don’t pay them.
Of course it is not ideal first of all because of the usual problem of government: politicians, bureaucrats don’t get a dividend from the profits of the state, they are not incentivized to maximize profitability. Secondarily, there are some incentive pitfalls like I am cheaper for them dead than pulling disability pay. Once it would look likely I will never work again their incentive would be providing zero healthcare.
So while it is not ideal, the basic idea of people paying something to an organization every month or year when they are healthy and working, and the healthcare costs are paid by that organization so they want to keep their client healthy and working and paying is there, and it can be tweaked. Part of the story is that people even when retired should keep paying. From this angle life insurance is better than social security.
However I think there is no workaround for the fact that once you have 5 years to live and extending that to 10 years costs a lot, whatever tax or insurance premiums you would pay in the second 5 years would not cover it and thus the organization has no incentive to extend your life. This can only be done by strict contracts or by politics. A third option is kids.
Let’s go a big sci-fi here, we make a pill that extends female fertility up to about 60 easy, and thus we can assume most people will have kids again because it can just as treated like an early retirement.
The point is, if people have kids, you can treat families as immortal or long-lived persons. You can work out a scheme that if dad’s life is not extended the kids will take their insurance elsewhere.
There’s research suggesting that in developing countries, increased healthcare spending doesn’t improve health outcomes like longevity. Don’t know how good the research is though.