Interests, Obligations, and Justice: Some Notes Toward an Ethic of Managed Care

The conditions I have outlined are consistent with central ethical of the report of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of AMA [American Medical Association]. Indeed, they flow from its central thrust, which is the primacy of the welfare of those for whom the system presumably is devised -- the sick, those in need of help, and healing. An ethically responsible society must adjust its and economic policy to the gold standard of healthcare ethics, distort that standard for economic reasons. Ethics and economics, like and distributive justice, must have a proper relationship with other. Ethics defines the right and the good, while economics defines the by which a society can achieve the most effectively the ethical ends it....[T]he good of the patient is the physician's prime responsibility. economics, nor the rulings of the FTC [Federal Trade Commission], nor "corporate ethic" can exonerate physicians or society if they ignore that ethical imperative.