Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Friday, July 17, 2009

More on Health Care

At the end of his discussion of Peter Singers call for rationed health care, Fr. Araujo says:   "If the treatment is available and will do good for that person, it should be made available."  Is this always true?  Two further questions:  at what cost and who bears the cost?  Two more:  who decides what is good and by what criteria? 

Even if we get medical and pharmaceutical costs under control, is it the case that a parent ought to be able to take a child to the doctor every time she gets the sniffles (easy to do back in the HMO days with a $5 co-pay)?  Should an otherwise healthy 85 year old be eligible for a heart transplant? 

My intuition is that we have (and will continue to have) health care rationing at multiple levels - government, insurance company, and individual. Am I wrong about this?  I'm more concerned about the criteria for rationing.  Singers criteria, based upon his anthropology, would lead to a furher entrenchment of the culture of death.  A Catholic anthropology, taking into account all that Fr. Araujo discusses, would lead to the building of a culture of life.  Thoughts?

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2009/07/more-on-health-care.html

Scaperlanda, Mike | Permalink

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