The principle of need—the idea that resources should be allocated according to need—is often invoked in priority setting in the health care sector. In this article, I argue that a reasonable principle of need must be indeterminate, and examine three different ways that this can be dealt with: appendicizing the principle with further principles, imposing determinacy, or empowering decision makers. I argue that need must be conceptualized as a composite property composed of at least two factors: health shortfall and capacity (...) to benefit. When one examines how the different factors relate to each other, one discovers that this is sometimes indeterminate. I illustrate this indeterminacy in this article by applying the small improvement argument. If the relation between the factors are always determinate, the comparative relation changes by a small adjustment. Yet, if two needs are dissimilar but of seemingly equal magnitude, the comparative relation does not change by a small adjustment of one of the factors. I then outline arguments in favor of each of the three strategies for dealing with indeterminacy, but also point out that all strategies have significant shortcomings. More research is needed concerning how to deal with this indeterminacy, and the most promising path seems to be to scrutinize the position of the principle of need among a plurality of relevant principles for priority setting in the health care sector. (shrink)

Principles of need are constantly referred to in health care priority setting. The common denominator for any principle of need is that it will ascribe some kind of special normative weight to people being worse off. However, this common ground does not answer the question how a plausible principle of need should relate to the aggregation of benefits across individuals. Principles of need are sometimes stated as being incompatible with aggregation and sometimes characterized as accepting aggregation in much the same (...) way as utilitarians do. In this paper we argue that if one wants to take principles of need seriously both of these positions have unreasonable implications. We then characterize and defend a principle of need consisting of sufficientarian elements as well as prioritarian which avoids these unreasonable implications. (shrink)

Recent health legislation in Norway significantly increases access to specialist care within a legally binding time frame. The paper describes the contents of the new legislation and introduces some of the challenges with proliferations of rights to health care. The paper describes some of the challenges associated with the proliferation of legal rights to health care. It explains the benefits of assessing the new law in the light of a rights framework. It then analyses the problematic aspects of establishing additional (...) priority rules as solutions to rights conflicts. It then defends adequacy criteria for acceptable priority rules when such rules are unavoidable. It finally defends our proposed method and explores concrete applications. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the relation between health-care needs and patients’ desires within shared decision-making in a context of priority setting in health care. We begin by outlining some general characteristics of the concept of health-care need as well as the notions of SDM and desire. Secondly we will discuss how to distinguish between needs and desires for health care. Thirdly we present three cases which all aim to bring out and discuss a number of queries which seem to (...) arise due to the double focus on a patient’s need and what that patient desires. These queries regard the following themes: the objectivity and moral force of needs, the prediction about what kind of patients which will appear on a micro level, implications for ranking in priority setting, difficulties regarding assessing and comparing benefits, and implications for evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

Instrumentalists about need believe that all needs are instrumental, i.e., ontologically dependent upon ends, goals or purposes. Absolutists view some needs as non-instrumental. The aims of this article are: clearly to characterize the instrumentalism/absolutism debate that is of concern (mainly §1); to establish that both positions have recent and current adherents (mainly §1); to bring what is, in comparison with prior literature, a relatively high level of precision to the debate, employing some hitherto neglected, but important, insights (passim); to show, (...) on grounds not previously to the fore in the literature, that insofar as instrumentalism’s advocates have provided arguments for the position, these are unsound (§2); to argue against instrumentalism using a new dilemma concerning whether ‘end’, ‘goal’ and ‘purpose’ are interpreted in a mentalistic manner (§3); to elucidate the implications of the needs/need-satisfiers and preconditions/means distinctions for the debate (§4). (shrink)

I introduce a distinction between health need and medical need, and raise several questions about their interaction. Health needs are needs that relate directly to our health condition. Medical needs are needs which bear some relation to medical institutions or processes. I suggest that the question of whether medical insurance or public care should cover medical needs, health needs, or only needs which fit both categories is a political question that cannot be resolved definitionally. I also argue against an overly (...) strict definition of medical need on the grounds that this presupposes, wrongly, that medical intervention should always be a last resort. (shrink)

In a recent extended essay, philosopher Daniel Hausman goes a long way towards dismissing severity as a morally relevant attribute in the context of priority setting in healthcare. In this response, we argue that although Hausman certainly points to real problems with how severity is often interpreted and operationalised within the priority setting context, the conclusion that severity does not contain plausible ethical content is too hasty. Rather than abandonment, our proposal is to take severity seriously by carefully mapping the (...) possibly multiple underlying accounts to well-established ethical theories, in a way that is both morally defensible and aligned with the term’s colloquial uses. (shrink)

In this article we argue that the principle of need, on some interpretations, could be used to justify the spending of publically funded health care resources on cognitive enhancement and that this also holds true for individuals whose cognitive capacities are considered normal.The increased, and to an extent, novel demands that the modern technology and information society places on the cognitive capacities of agents, e.g., regarding good and responsible decision-making, have blurred the line between treatment and enhancement. More specifically, it (...) has shifted upwards. As a consequence, principles of need on their most reasonable interpretations can be used to support publically funded cognitive enhancement. At least this is so, if broader aims than curing and ameliorating diseases are included in the goals of health care. We suggest that it would be plausible to see health care as accepting such broader goals already today. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, difficult decisions had to be made on the allocation of testing resources. Similar situations can arise in future pandemics. Therefore, careful consideration of who should be tested is an important part of pandemic preparedness. We focus on four ethical aspects of that problem: how to prioritize scarce testing resources, the regulation of commercial direct-to-consumer test services, testing of unauthorized immigrants, and obligatory testing.Main textThe distribution of scarce resources for testing: We emphasize the (...) use of needs-based criteria, but also acknowledge the importance of choosing a testing strategy that contributes efficiently to stopping the overall spread of the disease. Commercial direct-to-consumer test services: Except in cases of acute scarcity, such services will in practice have to be allowed. We propose that they should be subject to regulation that ensures test quality and adequate information to users. Testing of unauthorized immigrants, their children and other people with unclear legal status: Like everyone else, these individuals may be in need of testing, and it is in society’s interest to reach them with testing in order to stop the spread of the disease. A society that offers comprehensive medical services to unauthorized immigrants is in a much better position to reach them in a pandemic than a society that previously excluded them from healthcare. Obligatory testing: While there are often strong reasons for universal testing in residential areas or on workplaces, there are in most cases better ways to achieve testing coverage than to make testing mandatory.ConclusionIn summary, we propose (1) decision-making primarily based on needs-based criteria, (2) strict regulation but not prohibition of direct-to-consumer test services, (3) test services offered to unauthorized immigrants, preferably as part of comprehensive medical services, and (4) broad outreach of testing services whenever possible, but in general not obligatory testing. (shrink)

We have examined healthcare staff attitudes of toward a blogging cancer patient who publishes critical posts about her treatment and their possible effect on patient-staff relationships and treatment decisions. We used two versions of a questionnaire containing a vignette based on a modified real case involving a 39-year-old cancer patient who complained on her blog about how she was encountered and the treatment she received. Initially she was not offered a new, and expensive treatment, which might have influenced her perception (...) of further encounters. In one version of the vignette, the team decides to put extra effort into both encounters and offers the expensive new cancer treatment. In the other version, the team decides to follow the clinic’s routine to the letter. Subsequently, blog postings became either positive or negative in tone. We also divided participants into value-neutral and value-influenced groups by asking how their trust in healthcare would be affected if the team’s suggestion were followed. A total of 56 % of the respondents faced with a team decision to ‘do something-extra’ in encounters would act in accordance with this ambition. Concerning treatment, 32 % would follow the team’s decision to offer a new and expensive treatment. A large majority of those who received the “follow-routine” version agreed to do so in encountering [94 % ]. Similar proportions were found regarding treatment [86 % ]. A total of 83 % of the value-neutral participants who received the “do-something-extra” version stated that they would act as the team suggested regarding encounters, while 57 % would do so in regard to treatment. Among the value-influenced participants who received the “do-something-extra” version, 45 % stated that they would make an extra effort to accommodate the patient and her needs, while the proportion for treatment was 22 %. Among those who had received the “follow-routine” version, a large majority agreed, and no difference was indicated between the value-neutral and the value-influenced participants. The present study indicates that healthcare staff is indeed influenced by reading a patient’s critical blog entries, largely regarding encounters, but also concerning treatment is concerned. Value-neutral healthcare personnel seem to exhibit a pragmatic attitude and be more inclined to heed and respond to a patient whose criticism may well be warranted. The study also indicates that healthcare staff is partly positive or negative to future blogging patients depending on how the issue has been framed. For future research we suggest as a bold hypothesis that the phrase “clinical routine” might conceal power aspects masquerading as adopted ethical principles. (shrink)

In this article I analyse and discuss guidelines for priority setting in crisis management at a regional level in Sweden. The guidelines concern three types of crises: pandemics, large losses of electric power and interruptions in water supply. Pandemics are typical public health issues. Large losses of electric power and interruptions in water supply are in themselves not, but may have serious public health consequences. These guidelines are compared with guidelines for priority setting in health care. This is done because (...) of the central position of health care in the management of many different types of crises. The comparison shows clear differences. In the analysis, I use a distinction between substantive principles of priority setting and process-oriented principles. Regarding substantive principles, I have found that the guidelines point in different directions. This seems acceptable, however, since they focus on different problems. Moreover, it seems possible to integrate the various context-dependent principles by relating them to higher order principles. Regarding process-oriented principles, I have found that how and to what extent these principles are applied in the guidelines vary. If we want to apply these principles in a more satisfying way, this would require a more systematic approach. (shrink)

How should scarce health-related resources be allocated? This paper argues that values that apply to these decisions fail to always fully determine what we should do. Health maximization and allocation-according-to-need are suggested as two values that should be part of a general theory of how to allocate health-related resources. The “small improvement argument” is used to argue that it is implausible that one alternative is always better, worse, or equal to another alternative with respect to these values. Approaches that rely (...) on these values are thus incomplete. To deal with this, it is suggested that we ought to use incomplete theories in a two-step process. Such a process first discards ineligible alternatives, and, second, uses reasons grounded in collective commitments to identify a unique, best alternative in the remaining set. (shrink)

How should states and international organizations allocate global health resources? This paper examines proposals for distributing these resources in the literature. First, we look at the literature on the metrics for measuring what matters and consider how they might be modified to avoid some common objections—e.g., that these measures discriminate against the disabled or fail to give due weight to helping the young (or old) or those in present (or future) generations. Second, we canvas existing approaches to evaluating allocations of (...) health‐related resources utilizing such measures and advance a new way of doing so. We suggest that it is important to provide substantive arguments for directly evaluating alternative allocations, but there is also room for deliberation about fair procedures for selecting allocation criteria and securing just outcomes. (shrink)

This article argues that values that apply to health care allocation entail the possibility of “spectrum arguments,” and that it is plausible that they often fail to determine a best alternative. In order to deal with this problem, a two-step process is suggested. First, we should identify the Strongly Uncovered Set that excludes all alternatives that are worse than some alternatives and not better in any relevant dimension from the set of eligible alternatives. Because the remaining set of alternatives often (...) contain more than one element, we need some complementary method of selecting a unique alternative. In order to address this issue, I suggest that we must invoke caps on the values that are used to evaluate alternatives, and that these caps must be grounded in collective commitments. (shrink)

This article addresses the prioritization questions that arise when people attempt to institutionalize reasonable ethical principles and create guidelines for microlevel decisions. I propose that this instantiates an incommensurability problem, and suggest two different kinds of practical solutions for dealing with this issue.

Some argue that the concept of medical need is inadequate to inform the design of a universal health care system—particularly an institutional rather than a residual system. They argue that the concept contradicts the idea of comprehensiveness; leads to unsustainable expenditures; is too indeterminate for policy; and supports only a prioritarian distribution. I argue that ‘comprehensive’ understood as ‘including the full continuum of care’ and ‘medically necessary’ understood as ‘prioritized by medical criteria’ are not contradictory, and that UHC is a (...) solution to the problem of sustainability, not its cause. Those who criticize ‘medical need’ for indeterminacy are not transparent about the source of their commitment to their standards of determinacy: they promote standards that are higher than is necessary for legitimate policy, ignoring opportunity costs. Furthermore, the indeterminacy of concepts affects all risk-sharing systems and all systems that rely on medical standard of care. I then argue that the concept of need in itself does not imply a minimal sufficientist standard or a prioritarian distribution; neither does the idea of legitimate public policy dictate that public services be minimalist. The policy choice for a system of health care that is comprehensive and offers as good care as can be achieved when delivered on equal terms and conditions for all is a coherent option. (shrink)

Recent medical innovations like ‘omics’ technologies, mobile health (mHealth) applications or telemedicine are perceived as part of a shift towards a more preventive, participatory and affordable healthcare model. These innovations are often regarded as ‘disruptive technologies’. It is a topic of debate to what extent these technologies may transform the medical enterprise, and relatedly, what this means for medical ethics. The question of whether these developments disrupt established ethical principles like respect for autonomy has indeed received increasing normative attention during (...) the past years. Yet, more fundamental ethical considerations of a possible disruption of the concept of ‘medical necessity’ (and the potential ensuing clinical ramifications) have been limited if not absent. It is our modest – though morally and practically relevant – aim to address this objective in this article, by exploring how the current wave of allegedly disruptive innovation is invoking a resurgence of this concept and related debates on ‘the’ goal(s) of medicine. (shrink)

This article is about the justifiability of accepting worse cost effectiveness for orphan drugs, that is, treatments for rare diseases, in a publicly financed health care system. Recently, three arguments have been presented that may be used in favour of exceptionally advantageous economic terms for orphan drugs. These arguments share the common feature of all referring to considerations of justice or fairness: the argument of the irrelevance of group size, the argument from the principle of need, and the argument of (...) identifiability. It is argued that all of these arguments fail to support the conclusion that orphan drugs should be subsidized to a larger extent than treatments for common diseases. The argument of the irrelevance fails to distinguish between directly and indirectly relevant considerations of fairness or justice. The recent attempt to revive the moral relevance of identifiability has provided no novel reasons to think that identifiability is morally relevant in itself or due to considerations of fairness and justice. The argument from the principle of need does not fail due to any inherent flaw in the principle as such. Rather, this principle can be interpreted in different ways, and none of these interpretations support exceptionally advantageous terms economically for treating rare diseases specifically. It is concluded that we are awaiting justice based reasons for the preferential treatment of orphan drugs. (shrink)

Disease prioritarianism is a principle that is often implicitly or explicitly employed in the realm of healthcare prioritization. This principle states that the healthcare system ought to prioritize the treatment of disease before any other problem. This article argues that disease prioritarianism ought to be rejected. Instead, we should adopt ‘the problem-oriented heuristic’ when making prioritizations in the healthcare system. According to this idea, we ought to focus on specific problems and whether or not it is possible and efficient to (...) address them with medical means. This has radical implications for the extension of the healthcare system. First, getting rid of the binary disease/no-disease dichotomy implicit in disease prioritarianism would improve the ability of the healthcare system to address chronic conditions and disabilities that often defy easy classification. Second, the problem-oriented heuristic could empower medical practitioners to address social problems without the need to pathologize these conditions. Third, the problem-oriented heuristic clearly states that what we choose to treat is a normative consideration. Under this assumption, we can engage in a discussion on de-medicalization without distorting preconceptions. Fourth, this pragmatic and de-compartmentalizing approach should allow us to reconsider the term ‘efficiency’. (shrink)

Background The aim of this study was to investigate whether physicians who felt strongly for or against a treatment, in this case a moderately life prolonging non-curative cancer treatment, differed in their estimation of medical indication for this treatment as compared to physicians who had no such sentiment. A further aim was to investigate how the notion of medical indication was conceptualised. Methods A random sample of GPs, oncologists and pulmonologists comprised the study group. Respondents were randomised to receive either (...) version of a case presentation; in one version, the patient had smoked and in the other version she had never smoked. The physicians were labelled value-neutral and value-influenced on the basis of their attitude towards the treatment. Results In the ‘value-influenced’ group, there was a significant difference in the estimation of medical indication for treatment depending upon whether the patient had smoked or never smoked ). There was no such difference in the ‘value-neutral’ group. Conclusion This study shows that compared to value-neutral physicians, value-influenced physicians are more likely to base decisions of medical indication on medically irrelevant factors. Moreover, medical indication is used in an ambiguous manner. Hence, we recommend that the usage of ‘medical indication’ be disciplined. (shrink)

Allocating on the basis of need is a distinguishing principle in publicly funded health care systems. Resources ought to be directed to patients, or the health program, where the need is considered greatest. In Sweden support of this principle can be found in health care legislation. Today however some domains of what appear to be health care needs are excluded from the responsibilities of the publicly funded health care system. Corrections of eye disorders known as refractive errors is one such (...) domain. In this article the moral legitimacy of this exception is explored. Individuals with refractive errors need spectacles, contact lenses or refractive surgery to do all kinds of thing, including participating in everyday activities, managing certain jobs, and accomplishing various goals in life. The relief of correctable visual impairments fits well into the category of what we typically consider a health care need. The study of refractive errors does belong to the field of medical science, interventions to correct such errors can be performed by medical means, and the skills of registered health care professionals are required when it comes to correcting refractive error. As visual impairments caused by other conditions than refractive errors are treated and funded within the public health care system in Sweden this is an inconsistency that needs to be addressed. (shrink)