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This article considers the trend of powerful entities that are in full control of the means and knowledge needed to provide care and assistance to those who need it most. The article specifically focuses on healthcare, since the healthcare industry could be considered the strongest and most solid manifestation of care commodification. Scholars on the topic of healthcare and the ethics surrounding this important aspect in our lives have questioned whether healthcare could be considered a commodity as any other. More importantly, the question was raised, whether free-market ethic could work for healthcare. An often cited perspective since the early questioning has been that healthcare is not a commodity as any other because, (1) healthcare happens in a physician-patient relationship, which clearly differs from the usual definition of a commodity as being a transaction without relationship between...
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Marques, J., Coffman, M. (2020). Commodification of Care. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1183-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_1183-1
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