Ethical Issues In Healthcare

when sacrificing the greater good for profits. Corporate social responsibility should be prevalent in the healthcare industry which is responsible for the good health and lives of many people.
Ethical Issues
The private healthcare industry is an extremely profitable industry due to its extremely inelastic demand. However, the US government is a majority investor in the healthcare industry and therefore, has to spend a lot of taxpayer’s money to manage and oversee the disposal of the medical waste produced by the health care industry even though it has a very high opportunity cost. These costs are incurred by the government instead of the hospitals that are responsible for them. The government incurs high costs to deal with the negative externalities

government’s immense investments in the healthcare industry is inefficiently used as many unused supplies are thrown away and disposed of by the hospitals. Federal spending on unused medical supplies that are simply ‘thrown away’ by the hospitals, could be used by other more efficient initiatives that help society. According to the aforementioned report , “Money spent on the annual medical waste could have paid for the insurance coverage of 150 million American workers.” The hospitals practices may be overly safe and precautious but they are not economical and efficient. The national Academy of Medicine’s report in 2012, supported the abovementioned claim, by stating that “the U.S. health care system squandered $765 billion a year.” The economic reusing and recycling of this equipment could not only save the government billions but also help other sectors of society. The article, “Medical supply surpluses a common source of hospital waste” by Jeff Lagasse makes it clear that a majority of the medical waste, is generated due to medical supply

The advanced medical equipment cannot be used by medical professionals in the developing country, consumes a lot of electricity, and could possibly even break down and just stop working. Donated devices often run on different voltages than that which is standard in developing countries such as incubators for premature babies as states in Scientific American. Robert Malkin, a Biomedical Engineering professor at Duke University believed that every piece of donated equipment had potential to harm the recipient. He further adds that donations could be effective but that would require a lot of effort as the organizations and healthcare industry needs to acquaint themselves with the recipients’ specific needs and need to not only donate equipment but also provide them with the ability to use the equipment in a sustainable