How much is a life worth?

People, particularly those of us in healthcare, often talks about the value of a life in so many ways because we come across such situations of dealing with a patient's health (hence their lives) up close and personal daily. Nevermind the fact that not all of us are at the frontline with patients.

We cringe everytime...

The New York Times carry a provocative article "Why we must ration healthcare" today. Central to the article is whether society as a whole can afford to provide unlimited care to save a life that even when sustained is not "worth living"?

At the individual level, this often evoke a strong reaction "who are you to decide what's a life worth? Are you playing god?" ...

At the society level, when paying unlimited amount to sustain a life mean that less will be available for others, in a world of finite resources will present similar dilemma. The question that will likely be evoked is "why is your life more important than mine?"

What then usually happens is that people begin "game" this dilemma by playing a creeping game. "I know I am not god, so I will just do my best for THIS patient. Now if I only do it for this patient, I know it is expensive but society can still afford it and most of all I save a life."...then we hope that we never have to deal with this again. The truth is...someone else would.

The laws of mathematics will then apply. 1+1+1+........+ 1 = a very large number. The next thing we know, healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP would have crept up from 3% to 5% to 7% to 10% to 14% to 16% and this expenditure is slowly but surely crowding out money necessary for education, transportation, defence...gee we heard about this before!

Someone from the crowd will shout, "why do we spend so much on healthcare"?

So, how much is a life worth?