If you want to feel like you’re losing your mind.
Highlights:
A vaccine program will also be expensive, even though recipients are told they will get vaccinated for free. One thing I’ve learned in life is that “free” is rarely a good price for anything. Especially something of great value, like protection from a deadly disease.
I propose a citizen-led program with three basic objectives:
- Entice a broad array of social influencers to help drive vaccination rates
- Raise $50 billion to subsidize vaccinations
- Provide various businesses with certainty
My proposal is neither conservative or liberal — or it can be portrayed as both.
By establishing one price for the vaccine — free — we artificially constrain ourselves to that price and exclude other pricing models able to deliver better results for society.
HOLY FUCK HOW DO YOU GET THIS MANY BRAINWORMS
When I have a new idea and want to test it, I’ll often call a specific family member and run it by him. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy from a very different context, I do this “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” In many respects, especially politically, this family member and I couldn’t be more different. I’m well to the left, he self-describes as “to the right of Genghis Kahn.” For me, he is the very definition of a hard sell.
Don’t worry y’all. He’s a leftist.
So I asked him if he’d be willing to pay $10,000 to move up in line for a Covid-19 vaccination. He responded that he’d pay $100,000. His reasoning? He’d done well in the stock market this year and would be happy to both move up and help. He’d spent a career in uniform defending America against military threats. Defending Americans against a deadly disease didn’t seem much different. He could afford it and he’d do it.
