Paper
27 October 1995 Is there a need for health care rationing?
Mary Ann Baily
Author Affiliations +
Proceedings Volume 2499, Health Care Technology Policy II: The Role of Technology in the Cost of Health Care: Providing the Solutions; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.225344
Event: Health Care Technology Policy II: The Role of Technology in the Cost of Health Care: Providing the Solutions, 1995, Arlington, VA, United States
Abstract
Rising expenditures on health care have become a major cause for public concern. Attention focuses on the level of expenditures and the increasing share they take of GNP, but for most Americans, the real issue is not how much society spends, but what it gets for the money. There are several ways in which it could be said that the United States fails to get full value for the dollars spent on health care. Some care does not benefit, or even harms, those who receive it. Some care is beneficial but could be produced with fewer resources. Some care is efficiently produced and yields benefits, but the benefits are not worth their cost. And finally, despite the system's cost, many people are excluded from it and thus fail to receive care of great benefit. The need to address the problem of wasteful care is relatively uncontroversial. Everyone agrees that it would be desirable to eliminate care of no benefit and to produce beneficial care as efficiently as possible. There is also a growing consensus that steps must be taken soon to improve access. There is far less agreement on what, if anything, needs to be done about care whose benefits are not worth their cost. The public's limited understanding of this issue is an obstacle to good health policy. Meaningful debate about health care reform must include open and informed discussion of the extent to which different reform proposals will restrict beneficial care, how they will do it, and how well the results will reflect the preferences and values of the
© (1995) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Mary Ann Baily "Is there a need for health care rationing?", Proc. SPIE 2499, Health Care Technology Policy II: The Role of Technology in the Cost of Health Care: Providing the Solutions, (27 October 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.225344
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Medicine

Associative arrays

Computed tomography

Liver

Standards development

Complex systems

Lead

Back to Top