Benchmarks of Fairness for Health Care Reform

Book excerpt: The American health system has been critiqued widely in recent years for its many flaws. A common complaint has been that our system is unfair, a concern that comes from providers as well as consumers and from both public and private sectors. This bookaims to develop a framework for measuring various health reform proposals and current trends in relation to underlying social values in the U.S. In so doing, it seeks to expose social values that are at stake in current and future changes. At the heart of this book is the question: If the current situation is perceived to be unfair, will the future improve or worsen our situation? Targeted primarily for policy makers in government and throughout the health sector, this book will also stimulate graduate students in the health and social sciences. A wide audience will find the book of interest in providing a different perspective as to how current trends and specific legislative and policy proposals stack up against the authors' ten benchmarks of fairness. The book makes very limited use of illustrations, although tables provide understandable summaries of the concepts and their application in scoring proposals and trends. References are ample and pertinent. This is a stimulating and provocative work that shifts our focus to the collective social values at stake in an evolving health system. The book argues that our current system is unfair both in comparison to our values and the approaches taken throughout the rest of the industrialized world. Its sobering message is that the gap between what we value and what we have will likely increase until we recognize what is at stake.