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Is suicide expensive?
Ezra Klein writes:
But it's expensive. With only Switzerland in the market, there's little competition. And in addition to the 4,000 euros required for the services of Dignitas, you also have to pay for your flight, and for those of your loved ones.
Well, sort of. But if you already have $4,000, or can borrow $4,000 (don't tell them why you want the money), ex post it's actually not as expensive as it looks. Which may help explain why the demand is somewhat inelastic.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 16, 2009 at 04:46 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
$4000 spent is $4000 less to leave for your loved ones. Does the same apply to $4000 borrowed? I don't know how the law deals with debts upon death.
Posted by: Pedro at Jul 16, 2009 5:10:57 AM
$4000 spent is $2400 less to leave for your loved ones if your estate pays British Inheritance Tax.
Posted by: dearieme at Jul 16, 2009 5:40:26 AM
you'd save on the one-way airfare.
Posted by: poptpil at Jul 16, 2009 6:04:15 AM
What if, though, you need to borrow 4,000 euros? ;)
Posted by: Mark R at Jul 16, 2009 6:09:28 AM
I hear it's a great service. None of their customers have come back to complain.
Posted by: JL at Jul 16, 2009 6:51:41 AM
I wonder how cancellation fees and refund policies work.
You pay in advance. You realize the Football World Cup is coming and decide you would like to see it. You cancel. Do you get anything back? Zero? Do they charge you a cancellation fee? Maybe they give you store-credit that you can then use for a future suicide, or as a gift to someone.
What if they fail to make you die. Money back? What if you die and it hurts? The family gets something? Money back, voucher, t-shirt?
Posted by: londenio at Jul 16, 2009 7:02:01 AM
4000E, expensive, a luxury for the rich. That's the problem? Switzerland screwing the poor on their final purchase? Would I be the first to say OMFG on MR?
The rich do this because they plan past happy hour.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 16, 2009 7:05:22 AM
Oh, and just curious, will it be covered by Medicare?
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 16, 2009 7:16:34 AM
Best post (and comments) I've read this week.
Posted by: eddie at Jul 16, 2009 8:06:40 AM
Pedro--your estate has to pay debts out of assets at death before bequests are paid.
Dearieme--Does the British estate tax kick in for the first pound? In the U.S. we have a tax free limit, currently $3 million per person, double with a married couple and various trust strategies to avoid more. I wish that I was in a position to care about the details, but sadly my wife are worth much less than even the 1 person limit. Rats.
Posted by: liberalarts at Jul 16, 2009 8:26:34 AM
I guess I wasn't too civil in my first comments.
But come on, can anything at all be expected of the unproductive anymore?
Can't they even buy their own handgun (while still legal) and do it in the bathtub if they want to be thoughtful about it?
I mean, we have progressed past debtors prisons for the poor...oh wait...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090716/ap_on_re_us/us_wrongfully_jailed
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 16, 2009 9:46:02 AM
Expensive?
Clearly much cheaper than living.
Posted by: Linkt at Jul 16, 2009 11:08:03 AM
Do they sell gift cards?
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Jul 16, 2009 11:36:50 AM
What sort of marginal revolution does this post bring about?
Posted by: ASB at Jul 16, 2009 11:43:44 AM
What, a bottle of Tylenol PM isn't chic enough for some people?
Posted by: meter at Jul 16, 2009 11:56:54 AM
"Dearieme--Does the British estate tax kick in for the first pound?" No, it kicks in at about half a million US dollars each. And there's been a recent change whereby if you leave your money to your spouse she - if she she be - can use both allowances in her turn.
Posted by: dearieme at Jul 16, 2009 12:24:52 PM
Taking any kind of pills is a terrible way to commit suicide. It rarely works and when it doesn't it causes lots of unpleasantness.
The best is probably to jump off a sufficiently high building or bridge. It's something like 99% effective. The Golden Gate is a popular choice, I hear.
Posted by: Andy at Jul 16, 2009 12:26:00 PM
In the US, the last few months of life for someone with a terminal illness can be extremely costly and not at all pleasant. If you estimate that a night in the hospital might cost $1,000-$1,500 dollars, then a trip to Switzerland and the cost of euthanasia would prove a much less expensive option, which would give one both an opportunity to plan good byes to loved ones and leave more money to them.
Posted by: Jen (SLC) at Jul 16, 2009 12:29:55 PM
A tank of helium attached to a scuba mask is painless, cheap, effective, non-disfiguring, and so long as you don't try to talk to anyone while you are dying, dignified.
Posted by: mobile at Jul 16, 2009 12:53:39 PM
Antitrust regulators need to look into the Swiss monopoly. Surely some failed states must be looking for revenue sources other than philately and flags of convenience?
If I was in the final stages of terminal cancer, I'd pay good money for a firing squad, delivered with authenticity in the home country of whichever place it is that supplies the gesticulating and cursing ethnics in the reaction shot after James Bond in a car chase has plowed through their fruit cart at the local bazaar.
Posted by: anonymous at Jul 16, 2009 2:29:01 PM
[..] and so long as you don't try to talk to anyone while you are dying, dignified.
Okay, that was the best comment I've read this week.
Posted by: eddie at Jul 16, 2009 2:53:53 PM
Don't know if its expensive but from the comments , it sure appears to be morbid...
Best quotation on this :
"The dying is easy. It is the living that defeats us."
( Morris West : The Shoes of the Fisherman ). Also a great movie starring Anthony Quinn.
Posted by: Rama at Jul 16, 2009 8:30:43 PM
What is wrong with suicide by cop?
For at least a hundred million Americans, a gun is readily at hand, so loading up and going into a public place where police are quick at hand and starting shooting should do the trick.
And a lot of Americans blame someone for their problems, liberals typically, so shooting liberals would make suicide have a purpose.
Posted by: mulp at Jul 17, 2009 12:28:21 PM
