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Essay On Ethical Issues In Healthcare

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In Healthcare there are many ethical and economic challenges related to policy decisions. New medications are being researched and developed, such as Provenge, which is costing billions of dollars to create and driving the cost of these drugs exponentially. The medical cost-benefit continues to be a rising tension. Who gets to decide what treatment options are available to patients? Advancing medicine and technology has risen the cost to deliver health care. Should certain privileges only be given with those patients with the best healthcare coverage? Per Stein, “Provenge cost approximately $1 billion to develop and would cost each patient $227,000 for a year of life” (p.1). Chronic illnesses and diseases are being prolonged by advanced medicine such as Alzheimer’s and HIV. Ethically speaking, what is the benefit of treating the late stage Alzheimer’s patient? But, if we could develop a vaccine or cure for Alzheimer’s, how much would …show more content…

Our health care system structure has left too many holes to have concrete answers to these questions. If I have private insurance should I be able to take Provenge while my disabled brother is on Medicaid and isn’t even offered this choice. Our government was set up with a check and balance system so that fair decisions can be made. The complexity of healthcare needs these same checks and balances. The insurance companies, the patients, and the doctors all have different views as to who needs these advanced medicines and who is approved for them. It reminds me of my friend who had a child battling leukemia. For five years the family had to scrape, struggle, and fundraise just to treat this controllable cancer. It affected their lives in so many ways, they will never be the same. My hope is that we find a way to restructure healthcare to treat patients that need the medicine or technology in the

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