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Disability Discrimination and Patient-Sensitive Health-Related Quality of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2022

Lasse Nielsen Open the ORCID record for Lasse Nielsen [Opens in a new window]
Lasse Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
*
Email: lasseni@sdu.dk
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Abstract

It is generally accepted that morally justified healthcare rationing must be non-discriminatory and cost-effective. However, given conventional concepts of cost-effectiveness, resources spent on disabled people are spent less cost-effectively, ceteris paribus, than resources spent on non-disabled people. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that standard cost-effectiveness discriminates against the disabled. Call this the disability discrimination problem. Part of the disability discrimination involved in cost-effectiveness stems from the way in which health-related quality of life is accounted for and measured. This paper offers and defends a patient-sensitive account of health-related quality of life, which can effectively make cost-effectiveness less discriminatory against the disabled and thus more morally justified.

Keywords

cost-effectivenesshealthcare priority settingdisabilitydiscriminationhealth-related quality of life
Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 142 - 153
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

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