Age as a Criterion for Rationing Health Care

Abstract

A widely held view is that medical costs are a problem verging on a crisis. Perhaps on the principle that drastic problems require drastic solutions, for the first time powerful voices have been raised in favor of explicit rationing as a solution — possibly the only solution — to the looming cost crisis. And, in a remarkable reversal of recent history, age has been proposed as a criterion for withholding medical care. This has occurred in a society that less than 30 years ago established Medicare, its first national health plan, specifically to improve the health of the elderly.Although . . .