title: "Priority of liberty" and the design of a two-tier health care system.
abstract: Libertarian views on rights tend to rule out coercive redistribution for purposes of public health care guarantees, whereas liberal conceptions support coercive funding of potentially unlimited access to medical services in the name of medical needs. Taking the "priority of liberty" seriously as supreme political value, a plausible prudential argument can avoid these extremes by providing systematic reasons for both delivering and limiting publicly financed guarantees. Given impending demographic change and rapid technical progress in medicine, only a two-tier system with explicitly limited public guarantees and optional privately financed health services seems acceptable.
authors: University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors: Friedrich
authors: F
authors: Breyer
authors: University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt, Germany h.kliemt@fs.de.
authors: Hartmut
authors: H
authors: Kliemt
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005610:Freedom; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics; D006292:Health Priorities / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D011057:Politics; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics* / Q000458:organization & administration*
keywords: priority of liberty; public guarantees; rationing; sustainability