Why We Must Ration Health Care

New York Times by Peter Singer | Jul. 17, 2009 (Opinion)

Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala - via Fair Spin (Right), New York Times (Most Emailed)

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Subjects: World, U.S., Politics, Health
Topics: Poverty, Health Care
Member Tags: health insurance and managed care, medicine and health, reform and reorganization
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# Diggs: 6 (as of 2009-07-15)
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Posted by: Posted by Kaizar Campwala - Jul 15, 2009 - 9:01 PM PDT
Reviewed by: Fabrice Florin (review), Walter Cox (review), Derek Hawkins (review), Andrew B (review), Julian Friedland (review)
Content Type: Article
Edit Lock: This story can be edited
Edited by: Julian Friedland - Jul 19, 2009 - 1:19 PM PDT
Related Comments: Health Care (8)

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Fabrice Florin
3.9
 by Fabrice Florin - Jul. 18, 2009

Thoughtful article about the ethics of health care rationing from Peter Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University. This in-depth analysis deconstructs some of the myths behind terms like 'rationing' and 'socialized medicine' and paints a clear picture of the real ethical issues at play in this debate, based on facts, not just opinion. Illuminating and well-researched report.

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Julian Friedland
4.1
 by Julian Friedland - Jul. 19, 2009

Gutsy albeit some problems with the way he determines the dollar value of human life: If car accident chances were higher than the ones Singer provides, it's not clear people would pay that much more for air bags. But this wouldn't necessarily imply a lower value of life. It could rather indicate a lower ability to pay, which doesn't get addressed in his argument.

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Derek Hawkins
3.6
 by Derek Hawkins - Jul. 18, 2009
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Walter Cox
4.3
 by Walter Cox - Jul. 18, 2009
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Andrew B
4.7
 by Andrew B - Jul. 18, 2009

This article is a good beginning point for the difficult ethical discussions surrounding the implementation of national healthcare

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