Healthcare Rationing from a Christian Worldview
The ultimate “gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV), because he gave himself for our salvation. Therefore, human life is priceless, because our lives are a gift from God. Healthcare rationing as it applies to the delivery of health services in the United States and in other countries will be discussed. The quality of care, efficiency and equity, healthy lives, and access to health services will be reviewed as well.
Healthcare Rationing
There are many definitions used to describe what healthcare rationing is. As stated by Singer (2009) from New York Times Magazine, “health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another”, …show more content…
Healthcare is defined as, “the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, especially through provisions of medical services” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, n.d.). Therefore healthcare rationing can be best defined as “the allocation of health care resources in the face of limited availability, which necessarily means that beneficial interventions are withheld from some individuals” (Brock, 2007, p.127). Additionally, “rationing can be understood narrowly or broadly, and this account is deliberately broad in order to capture the full range of cases where scarcity of resources, either economic (for example, money) or physical (organs, professionals' time, for example), results in patients not receiving some beneficial care. If we understand rationing too narrowly we will miss some cases that raise people's concern about rationing, which is that they will be denied some beneficial care” (Brock, 2007, p.127). The current health care system in the United States is rationed by the ability to pay because medical care is not free here. Singer states, “in the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so
The ultimate “gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV), because he gave himself for our salvation. Therefore, human life is priceless, because our lives are a gift from God. Healthcare rationing as it applies to the delivery of health services in the United States and in other countries will be discussed. The quality of care, efficiency and equity, healthy lives, and access to health services will be reviewed as well.
Healthcare Rationing
There are many definitions used to describe what healthcare rationing is. As stated by Singer (2009) from New York Times Magazine, “health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another”, …show more content…
Healthcare is defined as, “the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health, especially through provisions of medical services” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, n.d.). Therefore healthcare rationing can be best defined as “the allocation of health care resources in the face of limited availability, which necessarily means that beneficial interventions are withheld from some individuals” (Brock, 2007, p.127). Additionally, “rationing can be understood narrowly or broadly, and this account is deliberately broad in order to capture the full range of cases where scarcity of resources, either economic (for example, money) or physical (organs, professionals' time, for example), results in patients not receiving some beneficial care. If we understand rationing too narrowly we will miss some cases that raise people's concern about rationing, which is that they will be denied some beneficial care” (Brock, 2007, p.127). The current health care system in the United States is rationed by the ability to pay because medical care is not free here. Singer states, “in the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so