The Ethics of Distribution, How to distribute health care fairly - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Even after increased spending on the United States health care, the country could not manage to improve health status significantly. Currently, access to health care in the United States is far from equitable; this has raised the legitimate question of justice. Health care insurance has managed to obtain access for most Americans, but 15 percent of individuals remain without coverage. A lot of people are still not able to access modern medicine, and this raises an important topic in medical ethics (Trotochaud, 2006).
In the conceptual bioethics framework, access to health care is under the principle of justice, for example; entitlement to resources, equitable distribution, and fairness. The issues of justice in the health care system are divided into two related but different dimensions; access and allocation. Allocation is the process that is used to determine the health care resources for distribution to individuals and populations. The allocation issue has three levels; social level, this is the amount of resources spent by the government on health care compared with other budgetary needs. Second tier is allocation at the point of healthcare service; this is the decisions of health care portions of the federal budget and to whom, where and how the funds will be spent. The final level concerns the individual patient; access to health care in the United States is determined by the ability to have health insurance coverage. Access relates to whether individuals who should be or who are entitled to access health care services can receive them.
Even with all the government spending on health care, a majority of people in the United States go without health insurance coverage (Trotochaud, 2006). For example, in the year 2009, 50.7 million individuals lacked healthcare cover. For the many individuals covered by insurance, they can access high-quality care with ease but at high costs. Those without coverage, or without adequate cover forgo much-needed care, ...Download file to see next pagesRead More