Securing Access to Health Care: A Report on the Ethical Implications of Differences in the Availability of Health Services: Volume One: Report

摘要

The Commission was instructed by Congress to study the ethical and legal implications of differences in the availability of health services as determined by the income or residence of the person receiving the service. To translate differences in availability into ethical terms, it is necessary to develop standards of equity of access to health care. The term equity means different things to different people. Does equity, for example, require that all individuals receive all potentially beneficial health care, or whatever health care is available to others, or some other level of care. Does it require only that the government ensure that people have the financial means for obtaining care, whether or not the services are available. Or does it encompass an obligation, as well to see that health services are available should the market fail to provide them. In Chapter One of this Report, the Commission attempts to respond to such questions and presents an ethical framework as a foundation for evaluating current patterns of access to health care and recommendations for change.