Justice In Health Care Essay

Although this week’s reading did not explicitly require us to apply the concept of justice to the United States’ healthcare system, I could not help but to consider the relationship, which left me pondering weather the term (justice) can even be used when referencing American healthcare.

Affordability is the first expectation that I derive from the concept justice. U.S. healthcare costs are steadily raising, which results in millions going uninsured every year. Emanuel states, “Too much money spent on health care reduced the ability to obtain other essential of human life as well as some goods and services not essential to life but still of great value, such as education, vacations, and the arts” (Emanuel, 2007). On average a person pays

Hospitals play a vital role in many lives everyday — as they are often used as a primary source of health care. Despite this knowledge, treatment provided in a rural hospital compared to urban hospital can be quite different. Urban hospitals are not expected to provide non-hospital services, such as home health, skilled nursing, and assisted living; while rural hospitals are. Unfortunately, rural hospitals providing non-hospital services hinder their own ability to compensate for their already limited resources. This includes equipment that would improve their effectiveness and efficacy, such as computerized provider order entry for medication orders, and the ability to exchange key clinical information among providers (AHA, 2011). The solution to this, in my opinion, was mentioned during Unnatural Causes. An interviewee stated that we need to “…allocate resources to reflect the needs of the community” (Unnatural Causes, 2008). Thus, when a rural hospital provides non-hospital services would have access to more resources in order to better serve their community. This would ensure “… all societies meet healthcare needs fairly under reasonable resource constraints” (Daniels,