ABSTRACT
Rethinking the Problem ofHealth Technology In the preceding chapter I drew on the Canadian health care policy arena in order to illustrate the typically complex and opaque institutional arrangements for regulating health technology found in advanced industrialized countries. I compared four main perspectives, emphasizing the multiple goals and interests pursued by industry, physician and patient associations, and policy-makers. Although far from homogeneous, these groups tend to defend their constituencies' interests at the institutional level and generally maintain that policy-making should foster access to new technologies. Providers, patients, and industry potentially benefit from evoking the familiar "for-the-patient's-good" argument. Meanwhile, often pitted against this notion of the common good, policy-makers are frequently seen as needing to be convinced to open the purse strings. At the same time, policy-makers recognize the pressures exerted on them and the limits placed on the means of controlling health technology use. Finally, within all these groups one can observe nuanced reflections about the less obvious interdependencies between the introduction of new technology and the acquisition and circulation of expert and lay knowledge among providers, patients, and the broader society in which they function.
