November 28, 2014

Tess Hanson
Human Biology 1090
Taking Sides: Should life sustaining medical care be rationed based on age?
The introduction to both articles states that by the year 2040 21% of the population will be over
the age of 65, at a 45% of healthcare expenditures. It goes to question the priority of prioritizing or
finding it necessary to ration healthcare based on age. Clare M. Clarke, author of the Yes side of the
article believes that rationing healthcare in old age has some merit and that the treatment of your
people should be a priority. Clarke develops her argument with the issues of equal worth, fair innings,
and prudential lifespan. While the Author of the opposing No argument, Norman Levinsky, argues that
healthcare should not be rationed by age and that age bias should be recognized and confronted. His
article addresses the ideas questioning if it is fair, expensive and wasted and states how it seems to
epitomize the absurd.
As Clarke develops her argument, she brings forth many good points, but seems rather
unconvinced herself, of which side she actually supports. Life at any age is worth living a statement
that Clarke positions, seems to contradict another one of her ideas as she questions what exactly the
worth of a life is. She goes on to say that the benefit of young persons given priority in a situation of
health care and life support situations is the length of life years. However, this idea made me curious. I
have witnessed people in their old age who have done far more in a single year than someone younger
might do in three. The old, or the young, might have equal opportunity to influence the lives of others,
but who is to say which of the two is more likely, when neither of them can speak for themselves?
On the other hand, Levinsky centers his article on not only the idea of fair healthcare, but on a
person. Alice, a real woman, not just a human, but an individual with a familynot just a numberwas

brought to attention as the purpose for identifying what is fair in healthcare. I found Levinskys
difference of opinion to be far more convincing than Clarke. He included real life situations, actual
people, absurd realities, and to me that made all the difference. Healthcare, after all, is the business of
people. Caring for the sick and afflicted equally, not on the border of what is morally permissible.
Levinsky tells how the application of rationing healthcare would not be in ease at all, but it would be a
danger rather than an advantage.
I have spent much time working and volunteering with the elderly. In some situations of agony
and helplessness, I have terribly thought that it might be better that they pass away so that their
suffering may end. I think what we ought to do in this situation is to side with Levinsky. Consider the
agony on patients, families and caregivers rationing healthcare is unfair. I feel that the majority of
purpose for its recognition at all is that thats where the money is. Healthcare, despite the worlds
perspective, ought to ultimately be about people and their lives, not about bodies and their money.