The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: Utility and the Just Allocation of Health Care Resources

Abstract

The current American health care system is plagued by three main factors: out of control spending, allocation inequalities and profound scarcity. For example, the United States spend above 14% of its GDP on health care as opposed to other nations which spend between 5-6% (Daniels and Sabin, 19). Despite this large pool of monetary resources, our health care system faces significant scarcities. "At the end of 2007, there were over 105,000 individuals on the waiting list for an organ" (Yokam). Beyond organ scarcity, our health care system is fraught with allocation inequalities. As a society, we spend an enormous amount of our allocated health care budget on the most ill: 72% of all medical costs are used to treat the sickest 10% of our population (Light, 65). In addition to sinking our resources into the most ill among us, America also fails to allocate health care resources equitably among ethnic groups. "In 2001, 35% of Hispanics had no health insurance coverage, compared with 20 percent of blacks and 15 percent of whites" (Levy and Side 1, 7). As a society, we are utilizing resources, both human and monetary, at astounding rates. Yet, medical resources are limited and our allocation outcomes are less than just. All in all, we are facing a medical resource crisis in which rationing is reality. This is a global problem which manifests itself differently in many countries, however, I will focus on the United States. I limit the scope, not to ignore the international character of the dilemma, but rather to focus on a specific test case whose exploration will hopefully yield wider applications in the international health care community. [From Part 1]