Should Society’s Investment in Medical Education Dictate a Duty to Treat?
The US system of health care is a product primarily of the free market. Most of those who seek care pay for it out-of-pocket or through some form of private benefit plan reimbursement. Medical students bear the major portion of the cost of their medical education. In the postgraduate years, hospitals recoup costs for residents’ salaries from Medicare, but this, after all, is salary for services that residents deliver. The development of a medical education financing system that, subject to government oversight, would cover medical students’ enormous debt might provide incentive for more physicians to repay society by treating all patients. Arguably, since it does not bear the medical student’s financial burden, society should remain silent on the issue of whether physicians have the right to refuse patients. In sum, a duty to treat beyond the emergency arena may only come with publicly financed medical education, through legislation, from the courts, or in ethics guidelines promulgated
