In article “Age Rationing and the Just Distribution of Health Care: Is There a Duty to Die?”, Margaret Battin argues whether medical care has to be rationed by age or not. Before she starts giving her points about the idea, she mentions a few famous historical figures, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Euripides, and Thomas More briefly stating their attitudes towards sick and old people. For example, Nietzsche describes sick people, who still depend upon doctors as, “parasites on society” and claim their actions as “indecent” (p. 318). Margaret Battin advocates distributive justice theory as the main idea in her writing, as she analyzes and uses Rawls’ and Daniels’ ideas of self-interest under a veil of ignorance to explain the fact that
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Margaret Battin has made a strong claim by showing off her claims and supporting them with proper statistics, showing the idea of rational self-interest under a veil of ignorance using Rawls’ and Daniels’ points of view on this problem, and I believe many people would support her claim. I agree with Batin’s idea of the age rationing of health care, but I would like to develop this idea and there are also a few ideas that I found not expanded enough or just not covered at all. For example, I do not like the fact that she says it is quite possible to just “forget” about elderly people in a situation if the funds and resources are extremely limited, because of their poor health and necessity of expensive operations, treatment, and medication. Also, I would like to see her to mention a possible help for the older generation from their families, or them using their own resources they have obtained during a lifetime, as the author has not really covered these possibilities. In conclusion, as for my opinion, the age rationing should be equal and fair for everyone. In this case, it would not even matter how old a person is, as he or she would be able to use doctors’ services without any restrictions. Of course, the respected age people would need more resources to be spent on them compared to the younger generation, but after a while, old men will be gone, young men will take their place and I have no doubt that everyone wants to be treated well once they are
Margaret Battin has made a strong claim by showing off her claims and supporting them with proper statistics, showing the idea of rational self-interest under a veil of ignorance using Rawls’ and Daniels’ points of view on this problem, and I believe many people would support her claim. I agree with Batin’s idea of the age rationing of health care, but I would like to develop this idea and there are also a few ideas that I found not expanded enough or just not covered at all. For example, I do not like the fact that she says it is quite possible to just “forget” about elderly people in a situation if the funds and resources are extremely limited, because of their poor health and necessity of expensive operations, treatment, and medication. Also, I would like to see her to mention a possible help for the older generation from their families, or them using their own resources they have obtained during a lifetime, as the author has not really covered these possibilities. In conclusion, as for my opinion, the age rationing should be equal and fair for everyone. In this case, it would not even matter how old a person is, as he or she would be able to use doctors’ services without any restrictions. Of course, the respected age people would need more resources to be spent on them compared to the younger generation, but after a while, old men will be gone, young men will take their place and I have no doubt that everyone wants to be treated well once they are