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When Is Medical Care “Futile”? The Institutional Competence Of The Medical Profession Regarding The Provision Of Life-Sustaining Medical Care, Meir Katz
Meir Katz
“Medical futility,” the doctrine by which hospital ethics boards have assumed the right to authorize medical providers to unilaterally withdraw or decline to provide aggressive life sustaining medical care, has swelled in popularity in recent years and has affected the lives of countless terminal patients. The case law governing medical futility is inconsistent and appears to provide medical providers and patients alike little guidance in this extremely sensitive area of health law. Lost in the confusion created by the case and statutory law is due consideration of the normative case behind “medical futility.” “Futility,” by definition, is preceded by an …
Towards A New Moral Paradigm In Health Care Delivery: Accounting For Individuals, Meir Katz
Towards A New Moral Paradigm In Health Care Delivery: Accounting For Individuals, Meir Katz
Meir Katz
For years, commentators have debated how to most appropriately allocate scarce medical resources over large populations. In this paper, I abstract the major rationing schema into three general approaches: rationing by price, quantity, and prioritization. Each has both normative appeal and considerable weakness. After exploring them, I present what some commentators have termed the “moral paradigm” as an alternative to broader philosophies designed to encapsulate the universe of options available to allocators (often termed the market, professional, and political paradigms). While not itself an abstraction of any specific viable rationing scheme, it provides a strong basis for the development of …