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Article: Health care resource prioritization and rationing: why is it so difficult?
- Article from:
- Social Research
- Article date:
- March 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 New School for Social Research. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE PRIORITIZATION OF HEALTH CARE RESOURCES AND RATIONING IS A paradigm example of difficult choices, and yet one might well wonder why. Individuals are continually forced every day to prioritize their own resources, deciding what to use them for and what to forego. The process could not be more familiar. Since our wants typically outrun our resources, and although we may regret what must be foregone, we learn to make the choices and move on to the next ones. So why is the very idea of prioritizing and rationing health care resources so troubling and controversial?
Americans are deeply ambivalent and inconsistent about health care rationing. On the one hand many ...