#382 Howard Friedman - Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life
RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 1st 2020.
Dr. Howard Steven Friedman is a data scientist, health economist, writer and artist. He teaches at Columbia University and has decades of experience in the public sector, private sector and academia. He has authored/co-authored about 100 scientific articles and book chapters in areas of data science, applied statistics, health economics and politics. In June 2012, Prometheus Books released his book Measure of a Nation. This book focuses on how to improve America by first comparing its performance with thirteen competitive industrial nations, then identifying the best practices found throughout the world that can be adopted here in the United States. Measure of a Nation was named by Jared Diamond as the best book of 2012 in an interview published in the New York Times. His most recent release, Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life, has been covered by major media including National Public Radio and the journal Science and is being translated into a number of foreign languages.
In this episode, we talk about Dr. Howard’s book, Ultimate Price. We discuss how the monetary value of a human life is calculated, and how it applies in several different instances, including the private and the public sector, the criminal justice system, the health system, life insurance, health insurance, the decision to have children, and war. We also talk about how we value humans lives in the covid-19 pandemic, and why we need regulation in capitalist societies.
Time Links:
The Value of a Statistical Life
The private and the public sector
The criminal justice system
The health system
Racial and gender pay gaps
Life insurance
Health insurance
Covid-19, and the value of human lives
Having children
War
Why we need regulations in capitalist societies
Follow Dr. Friedman’s work!
Follow Dr. Friedman’s work:
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3i1uejb
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3lFDSdt
Ultimate Price: https://amzn.to/3gPpLyk
Twitter handle: @howardsfriedman