Preference to Normal over Disabled under QALY Based Allocation - Essay Example

of Preference to Normal over Disabled under QALY Based Allocation Equality s that each human being must be treated equally on all levels and the bias must be minimized to the minimum. However, with the advent of the Modern age, the world has been bombarded with an increase in population and problems that demand a solution and sometimes it is like choosing between the devil and the deep sea. To converge these problems with the solutions, QALY can be used as a measure to pick and choose between the candidates as to whom should the resources be allocated.

The basic techniques through which a QALY result is obtained via the time trade-off method, standard gamble and rating scale. This paper is aimed at proving that preferring a normal person over a disabled one through QALY tests is just. The above statement might instigate uproar because they say that QALY is biased as they favor younger and healthier people over chronically ill and disabled people. The probable rebuttal can be explained through an example. If three people have a car accident and the doctor’s can save only one, what are they going to do then?

The doctors can come to the conclusion by looking at the health states of the patients. Consider that only one of them is physically fit and is 18 years old, the other is blind and 22 years old and the last one is chronically ill and 40 years old. The doctors need to make a hard choice nevertheless but they have limited resources. Hence, the doctors will try to save the physically fit, 18 years old patient who has a promise to life, the other two patient might not prove to be as beneficial to the society as this patient can be.

Hence, Darwinian Theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ re-emerges.  “The underlying idea is that every person's starting point in society is the outcome of a social lottery (the political, social, and economic circumstances into which each person is born) and a natural lottery (the biological potentials each person is born with)” (Rawls 74). Rawls says that the outcome of each of person's social and natural lottery is, like the outcomes of ordinary lotteries, a matter of good or bad “fortune” or “luck” (Rawls 75).

Hence, since one cannot possibly merit, or deserve, an outcome of this kind, people's starting positions cannot be justified by appeal to merit or desert (Rawls, 104). Now it is clear from the above statement that the disabled people are unfortunate as they were not bestowed with luck from the Divine Powers. Since, the base of the pyramid is unequal hence the building if not impossible to be perfect, would be difficult to shape as perfect. This paper does not however, says that disabled people should be thrown out of the system altogether but it focuses on the aspect which says that the normal people are endowed with more qualities than the disabled people.

Since the natural selection is in favor of the lucky ones so the pattern is already set for normal people to go ahead. Most people would now think that this paper is biased towards the disabled people but actually it is not. This paper lays stress on the fact that there is no comparison between the normal people and disabled ones, just as their no comparison with squash and tennis, though both of them are played in a court with a ball and a racquet. The above argument being laid, it is now clear that the two of them i.

e normal and disabled people are different, so how can we compare them? Both of these, if it is necessary to compare them, should be compared to their own leagues. If there is such a necessity than more appropriate results will be generated by comparing a normal person with another normal person and similarly, comparison with disabled person to another disabled person. Hence, linearity in a comparison is a must. It seems that Harris considers QALY as discriminatory as it says, “If for example some people were given life-saving treatment in preference to others because they had a better quality of life than those others.

this would amount to regarding such people as more valuable than others on that account” (Harris 121). The answer to this is, every single being is priceless and not valuable, because valuable is that upon which a fixed value can be attached. Since, there is no currency or measure which decides the exact value of a human being, thence, the concerns of Harris can be nullified. Also, in growing population and lesser resources there are two solutions that can save humanity: (a) Inhibit the growth of population (b) Controlled resource allocation The first option is being tried universally but there are no visible effects as yet, since the race against time is perverse, hence the second option is the only option to be implemented.

In this regard, it is justified that a normal person is preferred over a disabled person when circumstances arise and the matter is handled under QALY. Work Cited Harris, John. “QALYfying the Value of Life.” Journal of Medical Ethics 13.1 (1987): 117-123. Print. Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Print.