ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a succinct effort to estimate the influence of the patient rights movement back on society. The social movements of the 1960s and 70s set the tone and the goals for much of the reform agenda for the closing decades of the twentieth century, and probably, for the foreseeable future as well. Civil rights, womeris rights, gay rights, childrens rights, and the center of our attention here, the first stage of patient rights, all rose to prominence in the Sixties and the Seventies, and all shared a similar mind set. In the arena of patient rights, WebMD has 2,937 references. There are some 208 "search results" of a click on the Patients' Bili of Rights, including the position of the Bush Administration and bipartisan congressional support. The Patient Rights Movement undoubtedly has had a negative impact on efforts to allocate medical resources more equitably, namely, on efforts to implement a national health insurance.
