Should American Healthcare Be Rationed?

By U.S. News Staff

August 11, 2009 RSS Feed Print

Some say Americans use too much healthcare, that even if reform is achieved, universal access should not mean unlimited access. Tough choices must be made. Others worry that the most needy or least able to fight for themselves will be the ones left waiting, or dying.
Edited by Steve St. Angelo

Yes

No one can fail to be moved by heartbreaking stories of people suffering and unable to get

By Michael Tanner
Senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

healthcare they want or need. But compassion is a sentiment, not a policy.

We tend to talk about healthcare in the philosophically abstract. "Is healthcare a right or a privilege?" goes the refrain. In reality, it is neither. Healthcare is a commodity—and a finite one at that. There are only so many doctors, hospitals, and, most important, money to go around. After all, every dollar spent...

No

When people discuss "end-of-life care," they often invoke scenarios meant to

By Laura Hershey
National advocate for the rights of the handicapped

sound ominous: tubes, breathing machines, physical dependency. I'm not scared by those images, having lived for 46 years with increasing reliance on technological and human support. A ventilator aids my breathing. Personal care assistants bathe, dress, and feed me. I operate my wheelchair by blowing into a tube. And my life is far from over. Of course, none of us can know for sure, but I plan on being around for a while....

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Michael Tanner said that compassion is a sentiment not a polocy.Well Michael,what is wrong with promoting compassionete polocy ? I suppose he is saying that taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for improved and or expanded acsess to healthcare for those that need it the most ? Personaly,I have a problem with forced taxation for any reason,but the issue of forced taxation is not what we are talking about here.Ceartainly if forced taxation is justifiable at all, then forced taxation for the purpose of providing healthcare to Americans would in my mind be the only just reason to forceably seperate people from their money.
Maybe I am wrong,but Michael seems to resent the fact that not all of the nations public funds are spent on defence and infrastructure.Michael,perhaps you should resent the fact this nation is in fact spending so much money on so called ''defence'',which is realy agression''that we are unable to provide viable healthcare to more of the people that need it the most ? I have a hunch that Michael,like so many of the CATO spokesmen,would like to see compassion rationend just as much as much as he would like to see healthcare rationed !
Conservitives just do not seem to understand that no monatary price can be attached to human life ! Neither do they seem to understand the fact that we should not allow market conditions to restrict our human potential.Just as people should not be made slaves by human law,we should not be enslaved by the so called laws of the market.Economic markets are after all man-made,thus the laws or should I say market forces are man-made.
It is true that we have a finite number of doctors,nurses,hospitals et.I can not help but wonder if we were to strip the AMA of its monopoly over medical liscening,if in fact we would find our selves with more doctors and other medical proffesionals.I also wonder why half of the 600 plus military bases around the world can not be shut down and the billions of dollars used to operate those bases be spent on expanded medical care ! Again the typical conservitive reaction to scarcity seems to be to take action to create even more scarcity ! We should when faced with a scarcity of a needed resource or service,find ways to over come that scarcity,not allow a few greedy individuals to profit from the creation of even more scarcity !
Indeed it is a very sad day when a nation as wealthy as ours even begins to entertain the notion of intentionaly rationing healthcare !

James of NC 2:13AM January 22, 2010

Page 21, I notice the subtitle here is VALUE OF LIFE NOT FOR OTHERS TO SET and I am well aware that Laura Hershey has strong feelings that no one should decide whether she should live or die except herself. But, if the "value of life is truly not for others to set" then why does the Catholic Church and other groups become so aggravated when those of us that would like to have the right to end our lives in a reasonably pleasant way do everything in their power to make sure we are not allowed to do so. And I put Laura Hershey right there with the Catholic Church.
As to rationing health care, of course it is going to be rationed. It already is rationed. There may not be a "rationing board" but procedures are rationed either by insurance companies, money, availability, etc.

Douglas T. Hawes of TX 12:20PM September 04, 2009

Mr. Andrew Baum of WI
I agree with you,
However Be careful you do not let a weak mind weaken yours. I traveled many years on freight trains and worked where ever I ended up and saw many ask for hand outs. There are many reasons why people end up the way they do. for one thing we take more drugs than we need.
read whats below this reply we need to work with each patient and sometimes there relatives who are not specialist but might help in giving the help the patient needs not what the patient wants
Health care has become drug care Doctors have become prescriber's, Its all about drugs nowadays not health. I have not been to A doctor for over three years and I hope it will be another 50 because when I go to the so called doctors I start having seizers and I do not like getting sick and have to pay to get sick.
I like obamas plan except I do not want to be forced to see what they are calling doctors nowadays. I would be better off seeing a witch doctor.
Our biggest problem health wise is no physical education in schools no large parks near residential areas and all our food has chemicals in them and our oceans are polluted.
Drugs from the greedy pharmaceutical companies are not the answer we have gotten fat and lazy because of TV's computers vehicles and automation. Do not get me wrong if it was not for the waist to bring up prices I would love automation But automation requires that we get our exercise elsewhere instead of at work. and the pharmaceutical companies wants to replace exercise with pills and A lot of people are falling for it.
Don D. Brock

Don D. Brock of AZ 4:07PM August 26, 2009

Should American Healthcare Be Rationed?

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Should Healthcare Be Rationed?

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