ABSTRACT
The most advocates of healthcare rationing focus on publicly funded healthcare. The fact that rationing can be applied only to some aspects of healthcare introduces a distortion. Some care must be given; for example, some emergency treatment, treatment of fractures, and so on. Challenges to assumption of the Inevitability of healthcare rationing’ include arguments that rationing would not be necessary if there were greater efficiency, if non-effective treatment were eliminated or if the National Health Service (NHS) were properly funded. Possibly more fundamental, however, is the challenge to the assertion that healthcare demand, or need, is infinite and that resources are finite, which is the most common argument for the inevitability or necessity of rationing. Indeed, Julian Tudor Hart coined the phrase ‘finite need – infinite resources’ which, whilst not intended to be pushed to extremes, challenges and turns round the oft-quoted phrase ‘infinite needs – finite resources’ and serves to prompt questioning of the original formulation.
