The High Cost of Assisted Reproduction

Author(s):  
Judith Daar

This chapter explores how cost as a barrier to ART access is more complex than just the high price of medical goods and services transacted in the pursuit of parenthood. Reportedly, assisted reproduction generates annual revenues of over $4 billion in the United States, much of it paid out-of-pocket by patients who are underinsured for this aspect of health care. At first blush, it is clear that the synergy between high-priced treatments and low levels of reimbursement produces a world of stratified reproduction in which wealth status determines entry into the procreative marketplace. A deeper analysis does not refute this impression, but also reveals that socioeconomics alone do not fully explain how ART funding works to suppress reproduction by certain “lower resource” individuals.

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred A. Schwartz

Major environmental changes and recurring pressures have made universities in the United States that educate health care professionals vulnerable to corruption. Based on the experiences of one large, state-supported university, this essay argues that, in adapting to pressures, universities rely on the ordinary structures and processes characteristic of large formal organizations. Hierarchy becomes an opening to corruption when it is associated with low levels of transparency, a culture of deference that discourages questioning, and the absence of countervailing centers of authority. Where the need for resources is great and access is uncertain, these can become incentives to ensure access through corrupt means. Embeddedness opens opportunities for misconduct by fostering relations based on narrow loyalties. The ordinariness of the pathways to corruption in higher education can obscure timely recognition of misconduct even by members working in affected organizations. But, once recognized, it is also possible to find equally ordinary solutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea L. Oliverio ◽  
Lindsay K. Admon ◽  
Laura H. Mariani ◽  
Tyler N.A. Winkelman ◽  
Vanessa K. Dalton

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 276-284
Author(s):  
William J. Jefferson

The United States Supreme Court declared in 1976 that deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain…proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. It matters not whether the indifference is manifested by prison doctors in their response to the prisoner’s needs or by prison guards intentionally denying or delaying access to medical care or intentionally interfering with treatment once prescribed—adequate prisoner medical care is required by the United States Constitution. My incarceration for four years at the Oakdale Satellite Prison Camp, a chronic health care level camp, gives me the perspective to challenge the generally promoted claim of the Bureau of Federal Prisons that it provides decent medical care by competent and caring medical practitioners to chronically unhealthy elderly prisoners. The same observation, to a slightly lesser extent, could be made with respect to deficiencies in the delivery of health care to prisoners of all ages, as it is all significantly deficient in access, competencies, courtesies and treatments extended by prison health care providers at every level of care, without regard to age. However, the frailer the prisoner, the more dangerous these health care deficiencies are to his health and, therefore, I believe, warrant separate attention. This paper uses first-hand experiences of elderly prisoners to dismantle the tale that prisoner healthcare meets constitutional standards.


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