Forum: Rationing health care services | Fórum: Racionamento dos cuidados de saúde

Explicit rationing of health care is one of the most important issues
under debate in the academic and political fields in both developed and
developing countries. The articles presented in this Forum provide an
approach to some of the questions relating to this issue. The approach
is multidisciplinary, covering complex ethical questions and the
contribution of economics to the debate. The analyses reveal
specificities associated with the shift from implicit approach for
rationing of health care, traditionally dominant in health systems, to a
systematic and explicit priority-setting method in general and the
potential incompatibility between efficiency and equity objectives in
health policy in particular. The Forum's reflections link directly to
current worldwide discussions on the questions "Why ration health care?"
and "How to ration health care?".