Rationing Medical Care on the Basis of Age

"Rationing Medical Care on the Basis of Age" explores this highly topical issue and presents a critical argument on the nature of the possible crisis. Its in-depth philosophical analysis of the main ethical positions adopts an interdisciplinary and international approach. This book is important reading for healthcare policy makers and shapers and healthcare managers. Academics in ethics, philosophy, economics, and all healthcare disciplines will find it useful, as will public health specialists, health economists, and social scientists with an interest in health and medicine. The authors of this book have opened up significant new perspectives on many important issues which in practice confront politicians, managers, professionals, patients and the public today. They have done this moreover in a way that is highly accessible to a non-specialist readership.

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Honorary Research Professor of Medical Ethics and the Philosophy of Psychiatry, University of Aberdeen; Ereritus Professor of Social Medicine, University of Aberdeen

Perception of crisis. The costs of aging. The moral foundations of publicly funded medical care. Ethics and the crisis. Daniels and the 'Prudent Lifespan' account. Ethics and resource allocation. Callahan and the significance of age. Critique of Callahan. Crisis of aging? Policy implications.