Tag Archives: biotechnology

Is Healthcare Rationing Inevitable?

Yesterday’s NY Times magazine preview had a thought-provoking article by Peter Singer on health care rationing. Singer clearly comes at this from an extreme position (this is a guy whose fame is due to weighing hypothetical lives against each other), but he raises some excellent points. I’m not sure where I come down on rationing, and how it might work, but it’s clear that spending $50,000 on new drugs that only extend life by a few months is not a sustainable system. As congress gets ready to debate the health care bills coming out of committee, we should all start thinking about how America pays for health care, and reading Singer’s article is a good place to start. You only really need to read the first half. In the second half he goes into his usual shtick about disabled people vs. fully abled and goes off point.