Rationing - Is It Necessary?

We use the word "ration" when we have to conserve something; so you would be surprised to hear it used in conjunction with healthcare, something that we all believe is meant to be made available to those who really need it. But,

The problem with healthcare rationing is that it allows others besides the people who need healthcare to make decisions for them. While those who have the money are able to buy the kind of treatment they want with private insurance plans, the others who are on plans like Medicare and Medicaid are forced to rely on these plans for any form of healthcare. So if the plan does not allow them to seek a treatment that is controversial or not proved to be effective (like alternative medicine), then they cannot opt for that treatment, even though they want to do so.

This raises the question of the elderly – while new rationing measures call for counseling rather than prolonged care and treatment which is deemed unnecessary because it is only an expense that delays the inevitable, people are raising their voices in asking how the government is allowed to dictate who gets to be treated and who does not. Often, it’s not the doctors who have the autonomy to decide but the insurance companies. And this is where rationing goes terribly wrong – with money, not the individual, being the deciding factor, you can see why there is an outburst against rationing.

Healthcare rationing is important, as is the need to provide universal healthcare. But, the purpose of rationing should be for the following reasons:

• The cost of healthcare to the nation must come down
• Individuals must have access to basic healthcare
• It is in the best interests of those who really need healthcare but who cannot afford it on their own without help from the government
• It does not serve to fill the coffers of the insurance companies who only seek to profit from various healthcare plans.

If there is no rationing whatsoever, then costs are bound to soar and the national healthcare budget will take a beating that it cannot recover from. And if rationing is done on a broad scale, taking into consideration only the insurance companies, then healthcare itself will take a beating. We can only hope that Obama’s new healthcare rationing plan proves to be the success that he claims it will be, for the sake of our nation’s healthcare system which is in danger of collapsing under the burden of expense.

By-line: This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of online phlebotomy certification. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson1@gmail.com