Health care rationing
Encyclopedia
Health care rationing refers to governmental mechanisms that are used to allocate health care
when resources are scarce
. Countries differ upon the mechanisms they use to ration the distribution of health care. In the politics of the United States healthcare, rationing has been used as a pejorative phrase to oppose reform with political effect, whether the practice would actually be performed or not.
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
when resources are scarce
Scarcity
Scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having humans who have unlimited wants and needs in a world of limited resources. It states that society has insufficient productive resources to fulfill all human wants and needs. Alternatively, scarcity implies that not all of society's goals can be...
. Countries differ upon the mechanisms they use to ration the distribution of health care. In the politics of the United States healthcare, rationing has been used as a pejorative phrase to oppose reform with political effect, whether the practice would actually be performed or not.
Further reading
- Aaron, Henry. Independent Payment Advisory Board. New England Journal of Medicine, 2011.
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