Ethical Criteria for Allocating Health-care Resources - Authors' Reply
Publication Date
1-1-2009
Document Type
Letter
Organizational Units
Sturm College of Law
Keywords
Equitable healthcare, Rule of rescue
Abstract
We agree with Tim Baker and Peter Baker that allocating scarce, lifesaving medical resources by ability to pay is presumptively “inequitable and even immoral”. First, our discussion focused on the allocation of resources such as organs and influenza vaccines in a pandemic that would be scarce even in a developed economy with adequate resources for health care. Second, our aim was to explore morally justified systems, not describe existing systems. We agree that allocation by ability to pay is “active and widespread”, especially in developing countries. However, since it is so clearly morally unjustifiable for absolutely scarce resources, we did not deem it worthy of discussion. Our criticism of allocation by first-come, first-served because it favours the wealthy applies even more forcefully to allocation by ability to pay.
Recommended Citation
Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer & Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Ethical Criteria for Allocating Health-Care Resources - Authors' Reply, 373 The Lancet 1425 (2009).