Ethics of Managed Healthcare

Healthcare policy has emerged as one of the most important issues in American politics and will continue to drive significant aspects of contemporary American public policy debates in the near future. That is because, on one hand, the United States has maintained a system of economic Social Security programs since the post-Depression era of the 1930s and government funded healthcare since the 1960s that reflect a fundamental ethical concern for the needs of the elderly, the indigent, and the most vulnerable segments of the population. On the other hand, the realities of contemporary managed healthcare could quite conceivably bankrupt the nation within the next generation if significant changes cannot be introduced to reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and eliminate waste and healthcare-system-caused human illness.

In the most general sense, the quality of care simply means that healthcare services are widely available, affordable, and as...
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