Reliance on choice and market forces has already left many children in the United States without basic health services. U.S. female children have the highest death rate among the world's affluent countries. U.S. infant mortality, an indication of general health, stands eighteenth among the industrialized countries. In particular, children from poor and working poor families bear the worst of such inequalities. These children also suffer lost well-being and opportunities from poor health care.
American children living in low-income homes get sicker more and stay sicker longer.
Moreover, the main health problems of children in the U.S. arise from a failure to provide basic and inexpensive care for children, including their allergies, asthma, dental pathology, hearing loss, vision impairments and many chronic disorders. In what follows, we argue that the U.S. health-delivery system's neglect of so many children is both unfair and economically inefficient. Agreement from such diverse approaches shows that when a society can afford to do so, it is unjust not to provide access to basic health care to all its children. In Part IV, we point out that because these four popular theories of justice offer conflicting strategies for allocation of resources, it may seem tempting to avoid difficult choices by relying on personal choice and market forces to solve allocation problems. However, Part V demonstrates that this market-based approach not only treats children unfairly, but also seems economically inefficient.