President Biden wants $100 payments ‘for every newly vaccinated American’ | Hacker News Reader

President Biden wants $100 payments ‘for every newly vaccinated American’

finance.yahoo.com

as much as I think vaccination is a good idea, the more they incentivize it, the more suspicious it looks. TANSTAAFL.

Definitely ups the sketch level.

Is it a no win situation? No matter what's done? There will always be suspicion of wrong-doing.

It seems that way.

I don't think it's meant to convince them. It's a cost offset for people who have external costs associated with getting vaccinated. I.e. hourly people who are worried they'll have a bad reaction to the second vaccine and need a day off, but will still have to pay rent. Maybe some other people need Ubers to get to their vaccination.

It might also motivate those who are okay with the vaccination, but haven't taken any action yet. I.e. college students who have good natural immunity.

On the TANSTAAFL front, there are second order effects. I would bet it's cheaper to pay someone $100 and reduce their risk of hospitalization than it is to deal with them eventually getting COVID and potential bankruptcy from medical bills. There are also economic effects if we need lockdowns again, and those could reduce tax income.

I get peoples' wariness about a free gift from the government, but not everything is a zero sum game.

In Thailand the Chinese vaccination is free but only 40% effective. The American vaccination is $100 and 90% effective. My sister in law got the Chinese version and got COVID anyway. So she signed up for the American vaccination which will be in October.

In the USA we get the vaccination for free.

This is a great use of a new stimulus. That's $33+ billion, if we expanded it to the whole US population. He wants states to do it but the federal government is better position financially to do it. It's expensive but it's certainly less expensive than going around in circles dealing with never ending outbreaks and never getting back to normal because we can't attain herd immunity. I hope it happens.

Get vaccinated early and often.

Right. If I hide my card I can get vaccinated again and get that $100. Who knew you get prizes for being late?

May be they should help these people instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mxqC9SiRh8

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