Suppose you get X bee stings (problems) in one day, and you have a bee string rate of Y per day normally. If you can only afford to buy cures at a rate of Z per day (let's be optimistic and assume it's greater then Y) it will take you X-(Z-Y) days to cure all your bee stings.
Now, a bee sting sucks, but it doesn't kill you. In fact, life without any bee stings is, let's say, Q times better then with. Yet, the difference between 1 bee sting and N bee stings is pretty much nil, they all hurt. The only real benefit occurs when you cross the threshold that lets you have no bee stings at the end of each day.
The theory, as I understand it, proposes that given a big enough X, a person with a small (Z-Y), won't bother with curing bee stings, regardless of Q.
My comment was meant for the literal meaning for "Bee sting". What if I replace "bee sting" with a "cut finger". You will say whether it is one finger off from your body or 10 fingers off... it hurts the same!!!... so no need to pay attention.
In theory your/author's logic sounds good... but practically it does not make sense. I would still say that the analogy of car dents OR no of dishes in the sink is a better way to present it. Its a little impractical to count "physical/bodily" pains in numbers.
You may or may not do it, depending your discount rate.
Suppose being bee-sting free is worth H dollars/day to you, and the cure costs C dollars/day. As long as C/H < exp(-r( days until fully cured)) (where r is your discount rate), you'll buy the the cure.
Since r tends to be larger for the poor than for the middle class/rich, C/H is likely to be less than exp(-r(days until fully cured)), since the larger r gets, the smaller this constant gets. This is just standard econ, BTW.
Now, a bee sting sucks, but it doesn't kill you. In fact, life without any bee stings is, let's say, Q times better then with. Yet, the difference between 1 bee sting and N bee stings is pretty much nil, they all hurt. The only real benefit occurs when you cross the threshold that lets you have no bee stings at the end of each day.
The theory, as I understand it, proposes that given a big enough X, a person with a small (Z-Y), won't bother with curing bee stings, regardless of Q.