Rationing of expensive medical care in a transition country - nihil novum?

Abstrakt

The article deals with the issue of rationing expensive technological care. All developed countries face the problem of scarce resources and increasing demand implying the fact that not each patient can be provided with care he would clinically benefited from.

Rationing occurs on macrosocial (political) and microsocial (clinical) levels. On the clinical level the physician is the actor who decides upon treatment on the basis of a mix of implicit and explicit rules.

The article is focused on the situation in the Czech Republic and describes some of rationing strategies. Based on a qualitative research it considers rationing of selected technologies.

The conclusion is that rationing is rather implicit and not perceived as a hot ethical issue