WORLD NEWS: "India's Poor Get Health Care in a Card: Credit Plan Gives Nation's Neediest the Funding for Medical Treatment--and Tool for Changing It," by Jackie Range, Wall Street Journal, 26 August 2008, p. A10.
Addressing the nation's poorest 300 million, the key tool is a smart card, which contains personal data, fingerprints, etc. for an entire family, costing locals less than a buck. Why charge at all? The old Bill Easterly point: charge small fee and people value it more, but give it away for free and people often trash it, feeling it valueless.
Why so cool? Once you start such a program, the ancillary data collections can be magnificent, bolstering census and epidemiological understanding, economic development planning, etc.
My old bit: every avenue of connectivity requires a loss in personal privacy. That's the essential trade: I give you connectivity and you become more subject to code.
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