More than 80 percent of a person's lifetime medical costs are incurred in the last couple of years of his life. If you want to know what difference it makes whether one lives to 85 or 86, just ask an 85 year-old. Time is precious. When markets are effective, they put a high price on what is scarce and put a lower price on things that are plentiful. By pricing scarce things higher, markets compel people to conserve it and use alternatives when possible.
Time is scarce and in large part because there are so many demands on it.
Although we're richer than any generation in history, we've become time-poor. We don't have the time to do, read, watch, and talk about everything we want to, much less be, talk and play with all the people who matter to us. The reasonable thing would be to treat time as scarce and therefore something that should be given a premium. Time is the one inarguably non-renewable resource that is required for any experience of life. If markets are rational, they ought to put quite a premium on time.