Ethical Dilemmas and Debates in Modern Healthcare

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Ethical dilemma in healthcare comprises of a variety of medical decisions. Should one get an extensive surgery at the age of 95? Should we continue an 85-year-old patient on life support? These questions are extremely difficult to answer. “The ethical dilemma is how to balance the precepts of autonomy, beneficence, and distributive justice” (Teutsch & Rechel, 2012). Preference-based care and supply-based care, when used correctly, can help in such matters. Consequently, we have the debate of whether health care should be a right or a privilege. Reid mentions in his book, The Healing of America, that United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Canada all have universal health care. He also adds that they have better health outcomes than the U.S. in addition to lower infant mortality rates (Reid, 2010, p. 31-34). The U.S.’s mindset views health care as a privilege. However, President Obama brought his liberal agenda to the table and proposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010 (Teutsch & Rechel, 2012). It is projected that by the year 2019, the PPACA will transform healthcare as a right rather than a privilege (Teutsch & Rechel, 2012). Some U.S. The goals of ObamaCare are possible by reallocating funding and resources. There will be areas where compromises must be made. One such instance is the Medicare reform where hospitals will be receiving lower reimbursements from Medicare (Farley, 2014). Consequently, ethical issues arise with rationing of medical resources (Teutsch & Rechel, 2012). Reid (2010) discusses the rationing of healthcare in United Kingdom’s Beveridge model. In this model, rationing the medication, tests, and procedures in order to compensate for costs does budgeting. For this reason, people go without treatments and medications that the government would not cover. This brings up an ethical dilemma where an early implementation of measures must be taken to avoid a

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