Elsevier

Health Policy

Volume 10, Issue 3, December 1988, Pages 259-266
Health Policy

Life: quality, value and justice

https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-8510(88)90061-9Get rights and content

Abstract

The claim is questioned that QALYs (quality adjusted life years) provide an effective measure of beneficial health care and of cost-effective and or efficient health care and allow for a morally defensible way of distributing scarce health resources. It is argued the QALYs: (1) fallaciously value time lived instead of individual lives; (2) take an excessively narrow view of what quality of life might be; and finally and perhaps most importantly (3) they are unjust.

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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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