A must-read health policy editorial

In "Why We Must Ration Health Care", Peter Singer hits the nail on the head, making the case that rationing of health care resources a) currently exists in the United States, and b) needs to occur in a more rational form. I would go one step further and say that any attempt at reforming the US health care system that does not -- implicitly or explicitly -- address the question "how will we ration medical care" in a coherent, logical fashion is doomed to failure.

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. [....]In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.