Flashcards on Theories of Justice in Healthcare Allocation
Theories of Justice in Healthcare Allocation: A Student Guide
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Health care allocation
27 cards
Card 1
Question: Why might physicians in the US lack incentive to withhold marginal care for a patient to benefit others later?
Answer: They cannot be assured that dollars saved for one patient will benefit that same patient later or other patients, because there is no societal mandate
Card 2
Question: How does the emphasis on patient autonomy affect distribution of health care resources?
Answer: It has treated individual patient choices as irrelevant to distribution, but increasingly those choices are seen to dramatically affect resources avai
Card 3
Question: Why is bedside, case-by-case rationing by clinicians viewed as problematic?
Answer: It appears ad hoc and arbitrary, inventing policy as occasions arise, which is ethically unsavory and undermines fair distribution without shared fisc
Card 4
Question: What does the text mean by 'decisions of physicians to withhold even the most marginal treatments occur in the absence of a shared fiscal and moral co
Answer: Physicians make withholding decisions without a societal framework or agreed policies, so those choices lack consistency, justification, and assurance
Card 5
Question: How does the tradition of patient advocacy interact with resource distribution concerns?
Answer: Patient advocacy, combined with difficulties of realizing societal gains from individual restraint and emphasis on autonomy, tends to exclude justice
Card 6
Question: What stance does the passage take on the separation between patient-care obligations and policy?
Answer: It critiques the idea they must be entirely distinct: while macro-level policies should guide resource distribution, ethical concerns about fair alloc
Card 7
Question: Why does the passage argue that total fidelity to the patient with a 'hang the costs' attitude is itself a policy?
Answer: Because choosing to ignore costs in all cases effectively establishes a default policy on resource allocation, influencing distribution outcomes even
Card 8
Question: What practical problem reduces physicians' willingness to conserve resources for broader justice goals?
Answer: Even though physicians directly control a large share of resources (~80%), lack of assurance that conservation will translate into benefits for others
Card 9
Question: What broader social choices compete with health care for resources according to the text?
Answer: Education, defense, the arts, and other social priorities compete with health care for resources.
Card 10
Question: Give an example of competing choices within health care allocation mentioned in the text.
Answer: Deciding whether to transplant kidneys versus building intensive care units or providing extensive prenatal care.