A review of current healthcare funding models

As healthcare expenses grow, concern about how government and private agencies decide to allocate funds for healthcare resources and services also grows. Decisions for healthcare funding are not made arbitrarily but are based on sound ethical principles and practical considerations. This article is a review of 5 ethically based healthcare funding models discussed in the literature that are currently used to justify funding choices. If healthcare professionals and managers are better informed about the ethical reasoning behind funding choices, they could better determine which resource allocation alternatives to support. But where should we spend our resources? Although healthcare professionals have a duty to advocate for all healthcare recipients to receive a fair share of resources, the author concludes that our greater duty as a profession is to the good of society as a whole. Balancing allocation decisions by considering all of the competing healthcare funding models and the ethical bases for them is suggested rather than to advocate too strongly for favored models.