Allocation

 “Your argument may be right in real life,” I said after a moment of consideration, “But, if we take aside all human factor and consider the problem from a purely scientific point of view, I’m afraid you are on the wrong and there are ways to quantify medical service and allocate the resource accordingly.”

“Your proposed problem is largely a philosophical one,” my friend smiled, “Nonetheless, since you are obsessive with science, let me tell you this: There are two areas that an administrator could monitor a clinical unit – the amount of work done, and the result of performance.”

“I can understand that,” I said, “When you talked about the dilemma of awarding a good unit versus helping a bad one, you were referring to the intrinsic problem of monitoring the clinical performance. But, how about giving money according to the amount of work we do?”

“Alas, in that case I would still insist on my original opinion – we shouldn’t allocate resource to a unit by the amount of service it delivers.”

“Why? For example, as a fans of market economy, I’m sure you support the system of educational voucher for resource allocation amongst schools. Why can’t we do the same for hospitals?” I asked.

L was silent. He looked at me in my eyes; his curious expression seemed to say I had overlooked a simple problem.