Healthcare rationing is making deliberate decisions about what beneficial healthcare will be made available and what will be withheld, how much of healthcare made available will be provided, and to whom such care will be given. Broadly construed, rationing decisions may be implicit or explicit. Such decisions involve limiting or withholding beneficial treatment from particular patients or from patient groups in a general population. It is usually because the demand for healthcare is greater than what is available that rationing becomes necessary. Discussions about rationing may include conceptual and theoretical issues, including choice among competing moral values that justify decisions. It may also include deliberations regarding frameworks, criteria, standards, and procedures for setting institutional and societal policies to guide rationing decisions in general. Rationing is ...

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