Foundational ethics of the health care system: The moral and practical superiority of free market reforms

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy

Volumn 33, Issue 5, 2008, Pages 461-497

  Sade, Robert M ^a  

^a MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

Bioethics; Central planning; Free markets; Health care reform; Health care system

Indexed keywords

DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE; HEALTH CARE REFORM; HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS; HUMANS; MARKETING OF HEALTH SERVICES; MORALS;

EID: 58549106781     PISSN: 03605310     EISSN: 17445019     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jmp/jhn023     Document Type: Review

References (102)

1. Anderson, G. F., B. K. Frogner and U. E. Reinhardt. 2007. Health spending in OECD countries in 2004: An update. Health Affairs (Millwood) 26:1481-9.
2. Anderson, G. F., J. Hurst, P. S. Hussey and M. Jee-Hughes. 2000. Health spending and outcomes: Trends in OECD countries, 1960-1998. Health Affairs 19:150-7.
3. Arnett G. M., ed. 1999. Empowering health care consumers through tax reform. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
4. Barnes, J. 2006. Failure of government central planning: Washington's medical certificate of need program. Policy brief. Washington, DC: Washington Policy Center. Available: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/ healthcare/policybrief/06-barnes-constudy.html. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
5. Benner, P. 1998. When health care becomes a commodity: The need for compassionate strangers. In: The changing face of health care (pp. 119-35), eds J. Kilner, R. D. Orr, and J. A. Shelly. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdsmans Publishing Company.
6. Borger, C., S. Smith, C. Truffer, S. Keehan, A. Sisko, J. Poisal, and M. K. Clemens. 2006. Health spending projections through 2015: Changes on the horizon. Health Affairs 25:61-73.
7. Brock, D. W. and N. Daniels. 1994. Ethical foundations of the Clinton administration's proposed health care system. Journal of the American Medical Association 271:1189-96.
8. Brown, L. D. 2008. The amazing noncollapsing U.S. health care system - Is reform finally at hand? The New England Journal of Medicine 358:325-7.
9. Buchanan, J. M. and G. Tulley. 1962. The calculus of consent. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
10. Bukharin, N. I. and Preobra Zhensky. 1969. The ABC of communism. Baltimore, MD: Penguin.
11. Butler S. M. and E. F. Haiselmaier, eds. 1989. A national health system for America: critical issues. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation.
12. Cherry, M. J. 2005. The market and medical innovation: Human passions and medical advancement. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 30:555-69.
13. Chockley, N., H. Pirani and K. Kushner. 2006. A primer on the CPS estimate of America's uninsured. NIHCM brief. Washington, DC: National Institute for Health Care Management. Available: http://www.nihcm.org/~nihcmor/ pdf/NIHCMPrimer06FINAL.pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
14. Concise Dictionary of American History. 1983. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
15. Consumer Reports. Our health ratings: Consumers reports health ratings center. Available: http://www.consumerreports.org/health/about/our-health- ratings.htm#cuhealthrating. (Accessed July 14, 2008).
16. Daniels, N. 2007. Just health: Meeting health needs fairly. New York: Cambridge University Press.
17. DeGrazia, D. 2008. Single payer meets managed competition: The case for public funding and private delivery. Hastings Center Report 38:23-33.
18. Den Uyl, D. J. and D. A. Rasmussen. 1995. "Rights" as metanormative principles, 59-75. In: Liberty for the 21st century: Contemporary libertarian thought, eds T. Machan, and D. A. Rasmussen. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
19. DeNavas-Walt, C., B. D. Proctor and J. Smith. 2007. Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2006. Current population reports, Available: http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
20. Dorn, S. 2008. Uninsured and dying because of it: Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the impact of uninsurance on mortality. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
21. Dubler, N. N. 1993. Working on the Clinton administration's health care reform task force. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 3:421-31.
22. Eberstadt, N. 1995. The tyranny of numbers: Mismeasurement and misrule. Washington, DC: AEI Press.
23. Emanuel, E. J. 2008. The cost-coverage trade-off: "It's health care costs, stupid". Journal of the American Medical Association 299:947-9.
24. Emanuel, E. J. and V. R. Fuchs. 2008. The perfect storm of overutilization. Journal of the American Medical Association 299:2789-91.
25. Engelhardt, H. T. 1996. The foundations of bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
26. Esmail, N. and M. A. Walker. 2007. Waiting your turn: Hospital waiting lists in Canada. vol. 17. Critical Issues Bulletin. Calgary, Alberta: Fraser Institute.
27. Etzioni, A. 1996. The responsive community: A communitarian perspective. American Sociological Review 61:1-11.
28. Families USA. 2008. Dying for coverage. Available: http://www.familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/publications/dying-for-coverage. html. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
29. Friedman, M. 1962. Capitalism and freedom. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
30. Gaus, G. 2003. Backwards into the future: Neorepublicanism as a postsocialist critique of market society. Social Philosophy and Policy 20:59-91.
31. Ginsburg, J. A., R. B. Doherty, J. F. Ralston and N. Senkeeto. 2008. Achieving a high-performance health care system with universal access: What the United States can learn from other countries. Annals of Internal Medicine 148:55-75.
32. Goodman, J. C. 2001. Characteristics of an ideal health care system. NCPA policy report, Available: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st242/. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
33. Goodman, J. C. 2005. Solving the problem of the uninsured. Thoracic Surgery Clinics 15:503-12.
34. Goodman, J. C. 2006. Health savings accounts: Testimony before the U.S. senate finance committee subcommittee on health care, September 26, 2006. National Center for Policy Analysis. Available: http://www.ncpa.org/ pub/special/20060926-sp.html. (Accessed July 15, 2008).
35. Goodman, J. C., L. Gorman, D. M. Herrick and R. M. Sade. 2008. U.S. health care reform: Do other countries have the answers? Tokyo, Japan: Mont Pelerin Society.
36. Goodman, J. C. and G. L. Musgrave. 1985. The changing market for health insurance: Opting out of the cost-plus system. Policy report (report no. 118). Dallas, TX: National Center for Policy Analysis.
37. Goodman, J. C. and G. L. Musgrave. 1992. Patient power: Solving America's health care crisis. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.
38. Gorman, L. 2008. Dying for (media) coverage. National Center for Policy Analysis. Available: http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/dying-for-media- coverage/. (Accessed July 14, 2008).
39. Greenspan, A. 2007. The age of turbulence: Adventures in a new world. New York: The Penguin Press.
40. Gwartney, J. and R. Lawson. 2007. Economic freedom of the world: 2007 annual report. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.
41. Hadley, J. and J. Holahan. 2003. How much medical care do the uninsured use, and who pays for it? Health Aff (Millwood). Suppl:W3-66-81. Available: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w3.250v1/ DC1. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
42. Hanson, R. 2002. Why health is not special: Errors in evolved bioethics intuitions. Social Philosophy and Policy 19:153-79.
43. Hayek, F. A. 1948. Individualism and economic order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
44. Hayek, F. A. 1960. Constitution of liberty. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery.
45. Hayek, F. A. 1978. New studies in philosophy, politics, economics and the history of ideas. London: Routledge.
46. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Public Law No. 104-91.
47. Herrick, D. M. 2006. Why are health costs rising? Brief analysis. Dallas, TX: National Center for Policy Analysis. Available: http://www.ncpa.org/ pub/ba/ba572/. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
48. Herrick, D. M. 2007. Medical tourism: Global competition in health care. NCPA policy report. Dallas, TX: National Center for Policy Analysis. Available: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st304/st304.pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
49. Herzlinger, R. 1997. Market-driven health care: Who wins, who loses in the transformation of America's largest service industry. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
50. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Available: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-01.pdf. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
51. Hurst, J. and L. Siciliani. 2003. Tackling excessive waiting times for elective surgery: A comparison of policies in twelve OECD countries. In: OECD Working Papers. Paris, France: OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs. Available: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/24/32/5162353.pdf. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
52. Institute of Medicine. 2002. Care without coverage: Too little, too late. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
53. Jacobs, L. R. 2008. 1994 All over again? Public opinion and health care. The New England Journal of Medicine 358:1881-3.
54. Kapp, M. B. 2007. Patient autonomy in the age of consumer-driven health care: Informed consent and informed choice. The Journal of Legal Medicine 28:91-117.
55. Karabegovi, A. and F. McMahon. 2008. Economic freedom of North America: 2008 annual report (U.S. edition). Calgary, Alberta: The Fraser Institute.
56. Kelley, D. 1998. A life of one's own: Individual rights and the welfare state. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.
57. Levine, M. A., M. K. Wynia, P. M. Schyve, J. R. Teagarden, D. A. Fleming, S. K. Donohue, R. J. Anderson, J. Sabin and E. J. Emanuel. 2007. Ethical Force Program. Improving access to health care: A consensus ethical framework to guide proposals for reform. The Hastings Centre Report 37:14-19.
58. Litow, M. 1994. Rhetoric vs. reality: Comparing public and private administrative costs. Washington, DC: Council for Affordable Health Insurance.
59. MacCallum, G. 1967. Negative and positive freedom. Philosoph Rev 76:318-21.
60. Machan, T. 1989. The moral case for the free market economy: A philosophical argument. New York: Edward Mellen Press. vol. 15.
61. MacIntyre, A. 1984. After virtue. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University.
62. Manchester, J. and J. Topoleski. 2008. Growing disparities in life expectancy. Economic and budget issue brief, Available: http://www.cbo.gov/ ftpdocs/91xx/doc9104/04-17-LifeExpectancy-Brief.pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
63. McCain, J. 2007. I would solve the real problem. We have to rein in the cost of care by changing the way we pay for it. Modern Healthcare 37:20.
64. Meadowcroft, J. 2003. The British National Health Service: Lessons from the "Social Calculation Debate". The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 28:307-26.
65. Mills, R. J. and S. Bhandari. 2003. Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2002, Available: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-223. pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
66. Mises, L. V. 1936. Socialism, vol. 2. Translated by J. Kahane. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
67. Mises, L. V. 1947. Planned chaos. New York: Foundation for Economic Education.
68. National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974. Public Law No. 93-641.
69. Ness, R. B. 2007. Influence of the HIPAA privacy rule on health research. Journal of the American Medical Association 298:2164-70.
70. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
71. O'Grady, M. A., E. J. Feulner and K. R. Holmes. 2008. Index of economic freedom. Heritage Foundation 2008. Available: http://www.heritage. org/Index/. (Accessed July 14, 2008).
72. Obama, B. 2007. My cure for an ailing system. How I, as president, would achieve affordable, universal health coverage. Modern Healthcare 37:21.
73. Rasmussen, D. B. 1995. Community versus liberty. In: Liberty for the 21st century: Contemporary libertarian thought (pp. 259-87), eds T. Machan, and D. A. Rasmussen. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
74. Rasmussen, D. B. and D. J. Den Uyl. 1991. Liberty and nature: An Aristotelian defense of liberal order. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company.
75. Rasmussen, D. B. and D. J. Den Uyl. 2005. Norms of liberty: A perfectionist basis for nonperfectionist politics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
76. Rawls, J. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
77. Relman, A. S. 2008. Learning from failure in health care reform. The New England Journal of Medicine 358:856-7.
78. Rubenstein, S. 2008. More Americans delay health care: Cost concerns drive even the insured to forgo treatment. Wall Street Journal, D2.
79. Sade, R. M. 1971. Medical care as a right: A refutation. The New England Journal of Medicine 285:1288-92.
80. Sade, R. M. 1995. A theory of health and disease: The objectivist-subjectivist dichotomy. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 20:513-25.
81. Sager, M. A., D. V. Easterling, D. A. Kindig and O. W. Anderson. 1989. Changes in the location of death after passage of Medicare's prospective payment system. A national study. The New England Journal of Medicine 320:433-9.
82. Schoen, C., M. M. Doty, S. R. Collins and A. L. Holmgren. 2005. On the front lines of care: primary care doctors' office systems, experiences, and views in seven countries. Health Aff (Millwood). 25 (6):W555-71:289-302. Epub 2006 Nov 2. Available: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/ abstract/25/6/w555. (Accessed September 3, 2008).
83. Schreyogg, J., O. Tiemann, T. Stargardt and R. Busse. 2008. Cross-country comparisons of costs: the use of episode-specific transitive purchasing power parities with standardised cost categories. Health Economics 17:S95-103.
84. Scully, G. W. 2008. Economic freedom and the trade-off between inequality and growth policy report 309. NCPA policy report. National Center for Policy Analysis. Available: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st309/st309.pdf. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
85. Seldon, A. 1990. Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
86. Smelev, N. and V. Popov. 1990. The turning point: Revitalizing the soviet economy. New York: Doubleday.
87. Staessen, J. A., T. Kuznetsova and K. Stolarz. 2003. Hypertension prevalence and stroke mortality across populations. Journal of the American Medical Association 289:2420-2.
88. Starr, P. 1982. The social transformation of American medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry. New York: Basic Books.
89. Tanner, M. 1993. Returning medicine to the marketplace. In: Market Liberalism: A Paradigm for the 21st Century (pp. 175-88), eds. D. Boaz, and E.H. Crane. Washington, DC; Cato Institute.
90. Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. Public Law No. 97-248.
91. The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. Public Law No. 93-222.
92. The NIH Almanac-Historical Data. National Institutes of Health. Available: http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/historical/chronology-of-events.htm. (Accessed July 8, 2008).
93. The Uninsured in America. 2003. Chicago, IL: Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
94. Touchet, B. K., S. R. Drummond and W. R. Yates. 2004. The impact of fear of HIPAA violation on patient care. Psychiatric Services 55:575-6.
95. Verdecchia, A., S. Francisci, H. Brenner, G. Gatta, A. Micheli, L. Mangone and L. Kunkler. 2007. Recent cancer survival in Europe: A 2000-2002 period analysis of Eurocare-4 data. The Lancet Oncology 8:784-96.
96. Wells, D. A., J. S. Ross and A. S. Detsky. 2007. What is different about the market for health care? Journal of the American Medical Association 298:2785-7.
97. White House Domestic Policy Council. 1993. The President's health security plan: The Clinton blueprint. New York: New York Times Books.
98. Wilson, J. F. 2006. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule causes ongoing concerns among clinicians and researchers. Annals of Internal Medicine 145:313-6.
99. Wolf-Maier, K., R. S. Cooper and J. R. Banegas. 2003. Hypertension prevalence and blood pressure levels in 6 European countries, Canada, and the United States. Journal of the American Medical Association 289:2363-9.
100. Woolhandler, S., T. Campbell and D. U. Himmelstein. 2003. Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada. The New England Journal of Medicine 349:768-75.
101. Woolhandler, S. and D. U. Himmelstein. 2002. Paying for national health insurance - and not getting it. Health Affairs 21:88-98.
102. Zycher, B. 2007. Comparing public and private health insurance: Would a single-payer system save enough to cover the uninsured? Medical Progress Reports. New York: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.