Age-based rationing of health care: a descriptive study of professional attitudes.

A national search for actual attitudes toward age-based rationing of health care among professionals in positions to support or change medical policies revealed that support for, or opposition to, medical limits for the elderly depended less upon affiliation, demographic factors, and political-economic ideology than did the sub-issues related to the rapid expansion of medical technology and spiraling health care costs in an unprepared society. The consensus was that American health care standards should continue to protect Granny Doe as well as Baby Doe.