Baltimore Sun, August 14, 2009

 

Democrats are against health care rationing if it's done by insurance companies. Republicans are against it if it's done by government. What neither side will admit is that medical rationing is part of the future. We can't afford a system where everybody gets whatever care they want regardless of cost and effectiveness. The only question is whether we'll ration intelligently and fairly. Or not...

 

"We don't have unlimited resources to spend on health care," says Dr. Sean Tunis, head of the Center for Medical Technology Policy in Baltimore. "And we're already neglecting other important social needs because there's simply not enough money."...

 

"We have to recognize that right now we have a health care system in which everybody doesn't get everything they could possibly benefit from," says Ruth Faden, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. "How it's determined who does or doesn't get whatever they get - right now it's profoundly unethical. And not to acknowledge that is to just be naive."

 

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for additional information about health care rationing and reform: Ruth Faden and Sean Tunis:  Virtual Colonoscopy: A Window Into the Challenges of Health Care Reform. Health Care Cost Monitor, A Hastings Center Blog, August 6, 2009