Government Rationing vs. Self-Rationing

Karen D. McKeown, a Graduate Fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, has just posted a very good 20-page primer on health care rationing and patient empowerment.  Here is the abstract:

The current trend of rapidly rising health care costs is unsustainable. Many proposed reforms to curb spending rely on some type of rationing imposed by an unaccountable government body. A better alternative would be to allow individual consumers to make their own decisions about care, including the self-rationing of medical services, based on cost and their own desires. Such a policy is compatible with American values of limited government and individual liberty and responsibility.  State and federal policymakers should adopt measures to facilitate personal control of health care decisions.