Budgets of governments and private insurances are limited. Not all drugs and services that appear beneficial to patients or physicians can be covered. Is there a core set of benefits that everyone should be entitled to? If so, how should this set be determined? Are fair decisions just impossible, if we know from the outset than not all needs can be met? While early work in bioethics has focused on clinical issues and a narrow set of principles, in recent years there has been a marked shift towards addressing broader population-level issues, requiring consideration of more demanding theories in philosophy, political science, and economics. At the heart of bioethics' new orientation is the goal of clarity on a complex set of questions in rationing and resource allocation. Rationing and Resource Allocation in Healthcare: Essential Readings provides key excerpts from seminal and pertinent texts and case studies about these topics, contextualized by original introductions. The volume is divided into three broad sections: Conceptual Distinctions and Ethical Theory; Rationing; and Resource Allocation. Containing the most important and classic articles surrounding the theoretical and practical issues related to rationing and how to allocate scare medical resources, this collection aims to assist and inform those who wish to be a part of bioethics' 21st century shift including practitioners and policy-makers, and students and scholars in the health sciences, philosophy, law, and medical ethics.

In ALLOCATING HEALTH CARE RESOURCES, leading authorities and researchers expose the basic philosophical, ethical, and economic issues underlying the current health care debate. The contributors wrestle with such complicated issues as whether it is ethical to ration health care, the morality of the worldwide bias against children in allocating health care resources, whether sin taxes can be defended morally, and how to achieve a just health care system. The book also includes an insightful analysis of the Clinton health care reform plan. ALLOCATING HEALTH CARE RESOURCES will be of interest to philosophers, health policy experts, medical ethicists, health professionals, and concerned citizens. It serves to clarify and illuminate the logic and rhetoric of health care reform, and so to help us all achieve a fair and equitable distribution of these precious resources.

In this important and timely collection, some of the best minds in gerontology and bioethics -- including Nancy Dubler, Rick Moody, Andrew Achenbaum, Robert Hudson, and Robert Binstock -- explore the ethical, social, and political challenges of an aging society. A unique combination of disciplines and perspectives -- from economics to nursing, psychology to theology -- this valuable synthesis of theory and practice provides frameworks and analyses for considering the ethical issues of both individual and societal aging. The contributors address the major policy challenges of Social Security, Medicare, and prescription drugs as well as ethical issues ranging from individual autonomy to family responsibility to distributive justice. Specific topics covered include end-of-life decision making, family relations across generations, age-based intergenerational policies, and the reform of Social Security. Contributors:W. Andrew Achenbaum, Ph.D., University of Houston, Houston; Vern L. Bengtson, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Robert H. Binstock, Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University; Christine E. Bishop, Ph.D., Brandeis University; Thomas R. Cole, Ph.D., University of Texas Medical School at Houston; Peter A. Diamond, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Nancy Neveloff Dubler, LL.B., Albert Einstein College of Medici Msgr. Charles J. Fahey, Fordham University; Lucy Feild, Ph.D., R.N., Partners Human Research Quality Improvement Program; Martha B. Holstein, Ph.D., DePaul University; Robert B. Hudson, Ph.D., Boston University; Eric R. Kingson, Ph.D., Syracuse University; Ronald J. Manheimer, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Ashevil Kyriakos S. Markides, Ph.D., University of Texas Medical Branch; Daniel C. Marson, J.D., Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham; H. Rick Moody, Ph.D., AARP Peter R. Orszag, Ph.D., Brookings Institution; Rachel Pruchno, Ph.D., University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey--School of Osteopathic Medici Norella M. Putney, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Michael Smyer, Ph.D., Boston Colle Bruce Stuart, Ph.D.,University of Maryl Melanie A. Wakeman, Ph.D., California State University, Los Angeles; Steven P. Wallace, Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles; John B. Williamson, Ph.D., Boston College.

The competition for limited health care resources is intensifying. We urgently need an acceptable method for deciding how they should be allocated. But the goods that health care produces are of very different kinds. Health care can extend the lives of children and of older people. It can make it possible for a person to walk, when without health care that person would be permanently bedridden; and it can reduce the pain and distress of people who are terminally ill. How can we possibly decide which of these - and many more - diverse achievements of health care are more deserving than others? We need a common unit by which we might be able to measure these very different goods. The Quality-Adjusted Life Year, or QALY, is the most developed proposal for such a unit of measure. In this book a distinguished team of ethicists and economists defend the core of the QALY proposal: that health care resources should be used so as to produce more years of life, of the highest possible quality. This leads to a discussion of such fundamental questions as whether all lives are of equal value, whether health care should be allocated on the basis of need and whether the QALY approach incorporates an adequate account of fairness or justice. The result is the most thorough account yet of the ethical issues raised by the use of the QALY as a basis for allocating health care resources.

First Published in 1999, lesser collects fourteen papers to create a discourse on the practical importance in a society where the proportion of elderly people is increasing. Exploring how autonomy and how it should be defined, and ethically when is it right to preserve a person’s autonomy and in comparison is it ever ethically right to bring elderly peoples autonomy as a secondary concern is it saves them from harm?

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

This title was first published in 2003. The fulfilment of health care rights in a world where resources are scarce is a prominent issue. In this volume, Frances H. Miller introduces studies on a wide variety of aspects of this important yet complex process.