Michael Mazzeffi's Theory Of Health Care

October 27, 2015, The Baltimore Sun Opinion page highlighted a controversial, but thought provoking question: “Why are we using so many health care resources on dying patients?” (Mazzeffi, 2015, p. 1). I was immediately enticed and proceeded to read the piece by Michael Mazzeffi, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who knew EXACTLY how to catch readers attention. However, the question posed above cannot be answered in an educated manner without a theoretical backing. Although Michael Mazzeffi does not blatantly refer to social justice theory, his words say it all.

The Beginning: Implementation of the Affordable Care Act As an ICU physician for many years, Michael Mazzeffi has had ample opportunities

18). Certainly Michael Mazzeffi cannot decide this all on his own. All of the above policy critiques can be analyzed through a Rawlsian lens of distributive justice, which refers to the perceived fairness of one’s outcomes. Traditionally, distributive justice has been utilized in many field to assess how resources are being distributed to individuals. Although Rawls never explicitly mentioned health care in his Theory of Social Justice, it can be interpreted that health care is, indeed, a primary social good to which all, regardless of socioeconomic status, have an unqualified right. Nonetheless, in order to assure this opportunity is open to all and not completely burdensome, a principle designed to equalize the financial costs to illness needs to be created—as Mazzeffi suggests. This principle would recognize that the financial burdens of medical misfortunes should be shared equally by healthy and sick alike (Almgren, 2013). Mirroring what Mazzeffi mentioned about a 30-day patient review pilot program, a more direct example of a real application of distributive justice is seen within this same process of establishing guidelines for patient utilization review. Not surprisingly, many large hospital networks have not quite mastered the art of utilization reviews for many reasons not mentioned here. In spite of all that though, where is the patient voice in this conversation? In considering how to limit the use of end of life health care costs, ethical conduct which respects one’s self-determination to accept or decline treatments for themselves, can lead to a reduction in costs too. Referring back to Mazzeffi once again, assisting individuals to deal with their death fears by offering palliative care options presents a wider range of potentially cost-saving choices (which also value higher quality of life)