Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Difficult choices in treating and feeding the debilitated elderly
- 3 The American debate about artificial nutrition and hydration
- 4 Reflections on Horan and Boyle
- 5 The Living Will: the ethical framework of a recent Report
- 6 Some reflections on euthanasia in The Netherlands
- 7 Is there a policy for the elderly needing long-term care?
- 8 Is it possible to provide good quality long-term care without unfair discrimination?
- 9 The prospects for long-term care: current policy and realistic alternatives
- 10 What is required for good quality in long-term care of the elderly?
- 11 Should age make a difference in health care entitlement?
- 12 Economic devices and ethical pitfalls: quality of life, the distribution of resources and the needs of the elderly
- 13 The Aged: non-persons, human dignity and justice
- 14 Economics, justice and the value of life: concluding remarks
- Index
13 - The Aged: non-persons, human dignity and justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Difficult choices in treating and feeding the debilitated elderly
- 3 The American debate about artificial nutrition and hydration
- 4 Reflections on Horan and Boyle
- 5 The Living Will: the ethical framework of a recent Report
- 6 Some reflections on euthanasia in The Netherlands
- 7 Is there a policy for the elderly needing long-term care?
- 8 Is it possible to provide good quality long-term care without unfair discrimination?
- 9 The prospects for long-term care: current policy and realistic alternatives
- 10 What is required for good quality in long-term care of the elderly?
- 11 Should age make a difference in health care entitlement?
- 12 Economic devices and ethical pitfalls: quality of life, the distribution of resources and the needs of the elderly
- 13 The Aged: non-persons, human dignity and justice
- 14 Economics, justice and the value of life: concluding remarks
- Index
Summary
There are many kinds of argument about the allocation of resources in the field of health care and there are many different contexts in which such arguments are pursued. There are arguments around the Cabinet table, at regional health authority level, at district health authority level; these arguments issue in the decisions which effectively allocate resources.
Other participants in debate, such as academics of a variety of kinds, argue about the effective arguments. Health care economists, health policy analysts, political scientists, and even philosophers critically evaluate the lines of reasoning of the decision makers. Sometimes the meta-arguments (the arguments about the decision makers arguments) begin to influence the decision makers. They change the terms of reference and the concepts that the decision makers use. The most influential academics in this respect are probably the health care economists. Over the last 25 years economic decline in Britain has shifted thinking about the National Health Service (NHS) from a focus on inputs to a focus on outputs. There was a time when improving the NHS was discussed primarily in terms of improving inputs, that is, putting more resources into it. Now that resources are in real terms almost static the emphasis is on outputs — on getting the best value for the limited resources available.
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- The Dependent Elderly , pp. 181 - 188Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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