title: Health care reform: a study in moral malfeasance.
abstract: Instead of benefitting from open meetings and public discussions, the Clintons drafted their health care plan in private and asked that it be accepted in haste. They advance an ideology that claims we can receive the best care for all without any increase in cost or rationing, and then they use "ethicists" to justify this ideology through a supposedly common morality. However, there is no such common morality. In the context of American pluralism, one must look to the actual consent of the governed and recognize the limits on state authority. The result will be a two tiered system of health care, with a basic tier focusing on cost-effective care for the poor that eliminates suffering rather than equalizing inputs, and a space for collateral private insurance.
authors: Center for Ethics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030.
authors: H T
authors: HT
authors: Engelhardt
mesh_terms: D026683:Advisory Committees; D032921:Consensus; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D030881:Disclosure; D028663:Ethical Theory; D026822:Ethicists; D035082:Federal Government; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D010684:Philosophy; D024382:Professional Role; D011634:Public Health; D040841:Resource Allocation; D035621:Secularism; D012935:Social Justice; D012945:Social Values; D014481:United States