Facing Limits: Ethics and Health Care for the Elderly

by Gerald R. Winslow (Editor)

Overview

Advances in medical technology and the rapidly increasing population of older Americans are causing people to question the ethical limits of life-extending interventions. How do we weigh issues involving equity, efficiency, autonomy, natural life span, and responsibility for the financial burdens of health care for the elderly? In this collection of essays, leaders in the fields of ethics, medicine, nusing, economics and public policy explore the pressing issues of providing health care for the elderly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367007850
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gerald R Winslow, Editor

Table of Contents

Preface — Proposals to Limit Care — Intolerable Necessity: Limiting Health Care for the Elderly — Intergenerational Equity in an Age of Limits: Confessions of of a Prodigal Parent — Philosphical Foundations — A Philosophy of Finitude: Ethics and the Humanities in the Allocation of Resources — Ethical Options in the Care of the Elderly — Natural Life-Span and Natural Law Ethics — Clinical Perspectives — Surrogate Decisions for Nursing Home Residents — The Appropriateness of Life-Sustaining Care for Older People — Can We Set Limits and Enhance Autonomy? — Economics and Public Policy — Is Global Budgeting the Way to Set Limits on Health Care for the Elderly? — Counting the Costs of Lifesaving Interventions for the Elderly — Cost Containment and Conflicts of Interest in the Care of the Elderly — Changing the Debate About Health Care for the Elderly — Gender, Equity, and Distributive Justice — Achieving Equity and Setting Limits: The Importance of Gender — Ageism, Sexism, and Health Care: Why We Need Old Women in Power — How Age Should Matter: Justice as the Basis for Limiting Care to the Elderly — Exceptions and the Elderly — Personal Autonomy and Social Responsibility — Personal Choice and Public Rationing — Imposing Limits or Changing Attitudes: Strategies for Change — Old Age and Euthanasia: A Theological and Personal Perspective — Ethics and Aging: Callahan and Beyond

Editorial Reviews

Essays bringing together the work of 20 participants in the inaugural conference of the Ethics and Aging Project, a broad public discussion of ethics and health care for the aged, held in the Los Angeles area in the autumn of 1990. Following essays by Daniel Collahan and Richard D. Lamm in which they extend their arguments for age-based rationing and intergenerational equity, the remaining 18 essays address topics in philosophical foundations; clinical perspectives; economics and public policy; gender, equity, and distributive justice; and personal autonomy and social responsibility. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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