A Lifespan Approach to Health Care

Abstract

The next few years will bring many proposals intended to re-form the financing and the design of our health care system. Major reforms are necessary because we simultaneously face several critical issues: a growing insurance gap now involving nearly 40 million people; rapidly rising health care costs whose long-term rate of in-crease is unaffected by current cost-containment measures; and a pattern of resource allocation that leaves many fundamental health care needs unmet. In thinking about what we want reforms to ac-complish, I think we should try to answer such questions as these: Do we get from the spectrum of care we receive over the lifespan what we need and most want? Does our health care system allocate resources over the whole lifespan in a way that is fair to all age groups? How should we as citizens and as health professionals think about what we want our health care system to do for us? What are our social obligations to design a system that delivers care to both rich and poor, black and white, male and female, young and old? What does justice require in the way of health care over the lifespan?