Taiwanese People’s Attitude Towards Allocation of Medical Resources

[[abstract]]Purpose: The rationale of medical resource allocation has become more important when the resource is limited. The purpose of this study is to explore the attitude towards medical resource allocation among the Taiwanese people from the view of justice of resource allocation. Methods: The data of this study was from the 2011“Taiwan Social Change Survey—The Health Questionnaire”. We examined the Taiwanese people’s attitudes towards public medical resources allocation from the perspectives of the difference principle in fairness and justice, intervention effectiveness, cost efficiency, morale and ethics, and procedural justice. The issues of medical resource allocation included the coverage of different health problems, futile medicine, and the rights to use National Health Insurance. The factors related to the attitudes were also analyzed. The analysis method included descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. Results: More than 90% people agreed that the public health resource should be spent on AIDS and organ transplants. Only around 40% agreed the resource should be used on preventing obesity. Those who were older and lower educated were more likely to agree the resources should be allocated on new treatment to cancer, unconscious ventilator users, and end-stage dialysis. The significance of other factors seemed to be related to the possibility of morbidity. Conclusion: The results showed that the older people inclined to support the active utilization for terminal care. The new development of new cancer treatment is expected to increase the cost as the it is included in the benefits of Natonal Health Insurance. The effectiveness of terminal care is in high cost over relatively low effectiveness. The policy makers should think carefully about how to allocate the medical resources reasonably under the current limited resources when the population is growing old