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The 2010 Affordable Care Act is a sweeping reform to the US health care system. Hoffman offers an engaging and in-depth look at America's long tradition of unequal access to health care. She argues that two main features have characterized the US health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly American type of rationing. Unlike rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down, rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs, resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world.

In one form or another, health care now gets rationed. Not everything beneficial is done for every patient. For the individual the consequences are sometimes tragic. Rationing decisions thus raise a classic dilemma: how can we treat with dignity and genuine respect the person who gets short-changed by an efficient policy that seems best overall? Strong Medicine argues that we can, if those policies represent the hard trade-off preferences of patients controlling resources for their larger lives. Rationing is still strong medicine to swallow, but then it becomes what patients as well as the doctor ordered. Menzel develops this central idea and applies it to major issues of health policy and economics: the notion of pricing life, the long-run cost of prevention, measuring quality of life, imperiled newborns, adequate care for the poor, containing costs by market competition, malpractice suits, procuring organs for transplant, and dying expensively in old age. He provides a hard-hitting, critical philosophical discussion of these issues, in non-technical language accessible to a wide range of readers interested in policy questions the book takes up. The issues are fascinating, the arguments are careful, and the results often surprising.

What does it mean to be a "just" and "caring" society when we have only limited resources to meet unlimited health care needs? Do we believe that all lives are of equal value? Is human life priceless? Should a "just" and "caring" society refuse to put limits on health care spending? In Just Caring, Leonard Fleck reflects on the central moral and political challenges of health reform today. He cites the millions of Americans who go without health insurance, thousands of whom die prematurely, unable to afford the health care needed to save their lives. Fleck considers these deaths as contrary to our deepest social values, and makes a case for the necessity of health care rationing decisions. The core argument of this book is that no one has a moral right to impose rationing decisions on others if they are unwilling to impose those same rationing decisions on themselves in the same medical circumstances. Fleck argues we can make health care rationing fair, in ways that are mutually respectful, if we engage in honest rational democratic deliberation. Such civic engagement is rare in our society, but the alternative is endless destructive social controversy that is neither just nor caring.

This open access book provides a comprehensive perspective on the concept of ageism, its origins, the manifestation and consequences of ageism, as well as ways to respond to and research ageism. The book represents a collaborative effort of researchers from over 20 countries and a variety of disciplines, including, psychology, sociology, gerontology, geriatrics, pharmacology, law, geography, design, engineering, policy and media studies. The contributors have collaborated to produce a truly stimulating and educating book on ageism which brings a clear overview of the state of the art in the field. The book serves as a catalyst to generate research, policy and public interest in the field of ageism and to reconstruct the image of old age and will be of interest to researchers and students in gerontology and geriatrics.

Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it.

Presenting current research in an innovative text-reader format, Aging: Concepts and Controversies, Ninth Edition encourages students to become involved and take an informed stand on the major aging issues we face as a society. Not simply a summary of research literature, Harry R. Moody and Jennifer R. Sasser’s text focuses on controversies and questions, rather than on assimilating facts or arriving at a single "correct" view about aging and older people. Drawing on their extensive expertise, the authors first provide an overview of aging in three domains: aging over the life course, health care, and the socioeconomic aspects of aging. Each section is followed by a series of edited readings, offering different perspectives from experts and specialists on that subject. New readings focus on whether current federal spending on the elderly is sustainable and fair to other groups, how older consumers are reshaping the business landscape, and the challenges of marketing and selling to customers 60 and over. More emphasis is placed on how social class and inequality earlier in life can shape our final years and the number of older Americans living in poverty. The section on Aging and Health Care has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest data about chronic diseases that affect the elderly, government spending on health care, and policy changes to programs like Medicaid and Medicare. The section on the Social and Economic Outlook for an Aging Society gives the most current picture of the racial and ethnic diversity of older Americans, their participation in the labor force, and their income and wealth.