Response to Roger W Hunt

Abstract

A response to a critique by Roger Hunt of my views on the eventual likely need to use age as a standard for the allocation of expensive, high-technology, life extending medical care for the elderly. The response encompasses three elements: 1. that while the elderly have a substantial claim to publicly provided health care, it cannot be an unlimited claim; 2. that a health care system which provided a decent, coherent set of medical and social services for the elderly would be sufficient even if some limits had to be set; and 3. allocation and rationing decisions should not be made by individual doctors at the bedside but by regional or national policy.