$100 covid incentive

[rennigade]

What do you guys think of Biden calling on all states to offer $100 prize for receiving the vaccine? Money talks, I bet we'll see an uptick of people getting vaccinated if this comes to light.

Is this a good thing? Bribing people to do something. It's like when we were kids, our parents giving an allowance if you did a chore.

With all the stimulus and now child tax credits, $100 doesn't seem like a lot, but it's "free" money.

[james.hendrickson]

What do you guys think of Biden calling on all states to offer $100 prize for receiving the vaccine? Money talks, I bet we'll see an uptick of people getting vaccinated if this comes to light.

Is this a good thing? Bribing people to do something. It's like when we were kids, our parents giving an allowance if you did a chore.

With all the stimulus and now child tax credits, $100 doesn't seem like a lot, but it's "free" money.

Its totally a good idea.

I think what's been lost in all the inflammatory headlines is that vaccines still work. Here is an article from a health magazine in the UK.

If you’re vaccinated, you’re largely protected. Scientists in the UK studies the relative effectiveness of two-shot vaccines such as those of Pfizer and Moderna (Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine was first approved in late May in the United Kingdom) versus the Alpha and Delta variants. They found the vaccines to be 80% effective in stopping symptomatic disease from the Delta variant – that’s compared to 88% effectiveness of the vaccines against the Alpha variant. Vaccines stopped hospitalization for both Alpha and Delta variants more than 90% of the time.

Source link here.

The said thing is, the public debate seems to have lost much of the common sense and kindness we need as a nation to move forward on this topic.

[ua_guy]

I think it will work as intended: It will coax more people off the fence to go get vaccinated. The question is, will the incentive put a big enough dent in the remaining population that should get vaccinated. I don't know. If it speeds the economic recovery, I see this is a solid strategy of spending money to make money.

[Fishindude77]

I wish the politicians would just stay the heck out of it and leave it to the medical community.
It's already free. The reason it's not being fully accepted is because people don't trust their government or the media. There has been so many mixed messages and misinformation dumped on us over the last year and a half, you can't blame people for tuning out and just going about their lives.

[QuarterMillionMan]

In the movie Dr. Strange, "the bill always comes due."

[ua_guy]

The average cost of care for a covid hospitalization is estimated to be somewhere between $51,000 and $73,000 depending on age (healthcarefinancenews.com).

There is no shortage of analysis that says a $100 incentive to prevent exponential spread of the virus can save people and the government a TON of money. Just putting some numbers to it for visibility of how this could be a really good way to stop losses.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I could never understand the logic to spend more to save more.

[Drake3287]

I wish the politicians would just stay the heck out of it and leave it to the medical community.
It's already free. The reason it's not being fully accepted is because people don't trust their government or the media. There has been so many mixed messages and misinformation dumped on us over the last year and a half, you can't blame people for tuning out and just going about their lives.

Absolutely agree. As for the $100 bucks, I could never take money for this, just shows how pathetic of a population we now have. Dollar wise, I'm sure it'll save tax payer money in the long run though. This country has millions of poor, lower educated people that'll jump at this free money. Sad though.

[mumof2]

It was just on our news tody that our state has only had 16 cases of the flu this year...2019 we had over 26,000 cases, 2020 we had just over 1500 cases...and its because of many factors, we are all wearing facemasks, sanitising etc...we have no international travel so we aren't getting the flu variants we usually do...so will be interesting to see what happens when we open borders

[rennigade]

I wonder if short term, this plan will be beneficial, but long term, not so much. For example, wiping student loans. Those that already paid are essentially being punished. I would have waited to receive the vaccine if I knew I could have scored $100.

The next time a pandemic hits, people may wait longer until they're bribed to get a shot. I know the generic response is, your life is worth more than $100. Tell that to a person who has nothing.

[bjl584]

I wonder if short term, this plan will be beneficial, but long term, not so much. For example, wiping student loans. Those that already paid are essentially being punished. I would have waited to receive the vaccine if I knew I could have scored $100.

The next time a pandemic hits, people may wait longer until they're bribed to get a shot. I know the generic response is, your life is worth more than $100. Tell that to a person who has nothing.

It does create an interesting moral hazard. Especially in regions that aren't currently offering any incentive to get the shot. They will look to places who are giving out $100 and possibly decide to wait until some payout comes to their place of residence.

[myrdale]

Are we going to back pay those who already got the vaccine? If no? You mean we are rewarding those who are behaving badly?

Are we going to give $100 total per shot or per full vaccination? I got the J&J shot so $100 right? What about the two shots, do they get $100 per or $50, or $100 for the first shot and nothing after that?

Say we do back pay everyone, and everyone goes for this: 300,000,000 people x $100 = $30,000,000,000

Keep in mind the government has a list of everyone who has applied for the $100 for the shot, so by default they have a list of everyone who has not.

Who is paying for all of this again?

How is the money being handed out? You think people aren't going to cheat the system?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Finally someone sensible. I say enough helicopter money already. Most of us here are very good with our finances but yet we okay with big government handing out what seems like monopoly money. It is not sustainable.

[ua_guy]

Funny. Consider the cost the government has spent treating the severely ill due to covid. *That's* not sustainable. I guess we're not all capable of seeing the bigger picture.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Don’t cry when you see the big picture of yourself standing in line with 1000 other people for a loaf of bread.