Health Care Technology and the Inevitability of Resource Allocation and Rationing Decisions

ALLOCATION AND RATIONING OF HEALTH CARE RESOURCES Of all the resource-shortage crises this nation is expected to confront in the future, the problem of resource distribution is likely to be most acute and problematic in medicine.^23,29,123 Persons will be recognized as in need of, and then denied, benefits that the medical care provision system is capable of providing. Instead of an unidentified mass of persons being denied access to a needed resource, persons whose names have become known to the public will be declared ineligible for a treatment or service they are known to require.¹²⁴ Perhaps this scenario is inhumane, but it is undoubtedly a true representation of reality. As already noted, technology now permits to be saved the lives of persons who less than a decade ago would have surely died. Moreover, technology has made it exceedingly difficult to specify at precisely what point life ceases. This