HEALTH CARE

L. Chad Horne*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Suppose that a commodity is a good the production, distribution, and consumption of which is properly governed by the norms of the marketplace. Is health care a commodity? One perspective from which health care is clearly not a commodity is the perspective of standard welfare economics. Markets for health care and health care insurance suffer many sources of inefficiency, and this must be at least part of the reason why no developed country on earth leaves the provision of care to the unregulated market. However, philosophers have sought a deeper and perhaps more moralized rationale for the refusal to treat health care as a commodity, grounded in concerns of distributive justice or of the preservation of important social values like community or solidarity. This chapter examines those supposedly deeper arguments and finds them all inconclusive; only the appeal to efficiency can provide a complete and appropriately nuanced account of the imperative to decommodify health care.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Routledge Handbook of Commodification
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages185-197
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781003821359
ISBN (Print)9781032037370
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
  • General Business, Management and Accounting
  • General Arts and Humanities

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