Medical rationing as a health strategy.

Abstract

Notes the problem of rising health care costs in the USA. Considers a highly controversial solution to this problem, which is to consider health care as a scarce resource and to ration access to it. Whether rationing is done by age, ability to pay, or a cost-benefit analysis, the very concept contradicts the US belief in the right to health care. Other industrialized countries currently ration health care through a National Health Insurance Plan. Points out that, in the USA, individual states are beginning to consider health care rationing to combat shrinking budgets and increasing demand for services.