First do no harm: critical analyses of the roads to health care reform.
Health care reform poses numerous challenges. A core challenge is to make health care more efficient and effective without causing more harm than benefit. Additionally, those fashioning health-care policy must encourage patients to exercise caution and restraint when expending scarce resources; restrict the ability of politicians to advance their careers by promising alluring but costly entitlements, many of which they will not be able to deliver; face the demographic challenges of an aging population; and avoid regulations that create significant inefficiencies and restrict access to health care. Given such real-world challenges, how should health care be reformed in the United States or elsewhere? This number of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy examines many of the complex issues that must be considered in reforming a health-care system.
Health Care Ethics, St. Louis University, 221 North Grand Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103, USA. iltisas@slu.edu
Ana Smith
AS
Iltis
Mark J
MJ
Cherry
D001675:Bioethics; D005260:Female; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics* / Q000639:trends; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics*; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D011057:Politics; D015996:Survival Rate; D014481:United States