elderly healthcare
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For people nearing the retirement age, health care planning is an important, yet frequently overlooked, issue. Many people fail to develop a long-term health care plan until they need one. The problem with this is that last minute planning typically does not provide comprehensive and cost-efficient health care coverage because, as recipients get older, planning options decrease while the cost of health care coverage increases. How can medical needs be meet in a just fashion, giving everyone his or her due without running out of resources?
One proposal is to limit healthcare for the elderly. Although this sounds unfair, could it possibly be just? Philosopher David Callahan argues fairness and equality have nothing to do with giving every individual the same amount of care, but instead ensuring equal opportunities throughout life. Thus, to be fair in distributing healthcare resources, society should strive to ensure that everyone lives a healthy, full and productive life for, say seventy-five years. After that age, an individual is considered to have lived their fair and equal share of life. If they become ill, while society has an obligation to make them as comfortable as possible, it would be unjust to devote large amounts of resources saving their lives rather than devoting those same resources to someone who has not yet lived their full share of years, like an ill 65-year-old...