Extravagance is the first issue the author addresses. The American government spends more on health care issues as compared to other sectors. Despite spending this much, the American government has not achieved a lot in keeping a healthy nation as it provides minimal education about healthy living and practices to its citizens. The American government has failed to promote healthy living standards among its people and continues to pump funds into the medical sector.
ACHE’s approach to analyzing ethical issues provides principles and guidelines for understanding self assessment on matters to do with ethical issues. It also provides for policy statements on ethical issues. ACHE’s approach delineates and describes the concrete way to respond to ethical shortcomings. However, the author does not provide for rational ways of to handle the issue of ethical dilemma which is well provided by the above approach in its clause of responding to ethical challenges.
The author argues that in order to reduce healthcare costs the government should try to put minimal attention on its citizens with health problems and are either too old or mere infants. This is tantamount to ignoring human lives at the expense of cutting down health care costs, yet human life is more crucial than monetary problems. The author also argues that the government should ration its medicine, which also puts at bay the human life at the expense of reducing health costs.
Reducing health care costs at the expense of human lives comes with the following vulnerabilities. First, giving minimal healthcare attention to very old people or underdeveloped infants will result in increased deaths. Second is that, rationing medication leaves some citizens out of the basic health coverage. This may also lead to increased deaths as citizens would receive inadequate healthcare. The author says excess money diverted to healthcare should be diverted to other fields. Health care is a top priority matter than cutting down costs as it is core to human survival. Diverting the excess is similar to approximating the value of healthcare whose value is undefined.
The argument placed forth by the author of this article is inhumane, in the sense that it puts more interest on cutting down health care costs of the American citizens at the expense of human health that is of direct influence to the survival of mankind.
PBOR is the abbreviation for patients’ bill of rights. Classically, a PBOR warrants the patients a right to fair treatment, access to medical information as well as guarantees patients independence over health and medical decisions. Conventionally, a PBOR should guarantee the following rights. First, all patients shall use their resources to access the medical care that suits them. This implies that access to medical services is reliant on one’s economic status. Secondly is that all patients have a right to consult the health practitioner of their choice. This implies that a patient shall seek the services of the physician with whom they feel comfortable with. Thirdly is the fact that all patients should receive information about their medical conditions, the risks they face and the benefits of receiving medical care.
This implies that a health practitioner should not disclose any health issue of any given patient but should be free to disclose any medical condition as well as prescribe the way forward. A PBOR also allows for a patient to reject any form of treatment prescribed by a physician. This means that any form of treatment depends on the individual and no form of coercion should be used. Finally, a PBOR provides for non interference by a third party to medical care. This implies that the medical status of the individual should be kept confidential within the physician and the patient
Ethical dilemma is a situation in which one has to make two choices whereby none of the choices to be made would achieve a rational solution in a fashion that is ethically acceptable. For instance a health practitioner in the Casualty department of a hospital may be in a dilemma to help two victims from a road accident, one bleeding heavily from the head area and the other yelling due to a broken limb. In this scenario, both patients are in a critical condition. This renders the nurse in a state of dilemma known as ethical dilemma and in this case the nurse may not make a rational choice of whom to offer medical assistance. Sometimes health practitioners frequently have to make difficult decisions yet at the end of the day the existing norms require that they account for these actions and decisions.
Descriptive and normative ethics are different in the sense that normative ethics deals with moral problems which attempts to determine the right human actions. On the other hand, descriptive ethics refers to human actions as a result of some beliefs having an influence on some behaviors.
Darr Schema analysis of ethical issues provides for judgement of what one cannot classify as being either right or wrong, it also provides for a dilemma which entails making difficult choices as well as weighing the potential end results of one’s decisions and actions among other tenets. However, the concept of ethical dilemma is subject to refinement and criticism since it does not provide for what constitutes a rational choice leaving many in suspense.
Code of ethics refers to a set of written rules and guidelines provided for by an organization to its employees as well as the management to facilitate them to carry out their activities in harmony with its primary principles as well as ethical standards. A code of ethics provides a number of elements among others. Clients and the community should be responded to. By providing for this value, the practitioner at all times should advocate for an environment where the values, human rights, spiritual beliefs and customs of the individual, society and family are upheld and respected. Secondly, it advocates for professionalism where the practitioner plays a major role in establishing as well as putting in place acceptable standards that influence education, research, management and ethical practice. Finally, it champions the need for self responsibility as well as practitioner status among other elements
Utilitarianism is the most well-known theory based on consequence. It embraces the principle of utility. It states that actions should yield maximum balance of optimistic value over disvalue. In this case therefore, value may imply happiness and disvalue may imply harm. Conversely, the Rawlsian ethics puts the concept of equality and justice at its core. In the simplest terms, Rawls advocates for individuals to receive an equal portion, that people should get just enough that meets their individual needs and that people should receive services they can afford among others.
This question assumes that adult children are financially stable and should provide for their dependent parents. It also assumes that adult children should cater for their dependent parents.
