Medical Care as a Luxury Good

[gusl]

For our ancestors, long-term allegiance signals included weddings, funerals, helping to build homes, war and revenge killings, and care for the sick and injured. We have lost many old signals to alternative processes, however, and it seems difficult to create new signals. Thus great weight is placed on caring for the sick and injured as a signal of social allegiance; maybe we induce medical care not so much to make people healthy, but mainly just to show that we care.

Comments

[brer-vole.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

So in this hypothesis, how does one send the signal that they want to send the signal to people they care about and not the masses?

[alexeilebedev.livejournal.com]

By caring about people only when they don't need it.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Oh, were you referring to health as provided by the welfare state?
Well, I guess politicians can signal that they care about the whole population.

But when I read the article I was imagining paying for healthcare in a family setting. like the father who wants to show his children he cares about them, etc. but somehow that doesn't sound right... you family are almost always one's allies regardless. It would make sense if this was about paying the medical bill of your friends and neighbours.
Hm.... maybe companies paying health benefits to employees is the right example.

[brer-vole.livejournal.com]

Yeah - my comment was about being forced to help people I don't know or care about.
More accurately it was about being forced to help people - period.