‘Boutique Medicine’ Fits with Tenets of American Economy, Reinhardt Says in Op-Ed

"Boutique medicine," under which patients receive extra services for a fee, "seems only natural" in America, where education is based on a person's ability to pay and the health care of millions of Medicare beneficiaries and uninsured children is "ration[ed]" by income, Princeton University economist Uwe Reinhardt writes in a Boston Globe op-ed. According to Reinhardt, boutique medicine is "perfectly in keeping with certain sacred tenets of normative economic theory" that hold that a person's "position in our nation's income distribution largely reflects that person's marginal contribution to society." Reinhardt adds, "From that theory it is but a small step to the ethical doctrine that wealthy persons 'deserve' better ... health care than do persons of lesser means." Reinhardt concludes, "Some folks ... may as yet feel uncomfortable with [boutique medicine]. Their children and grandchildren will view it as American as apple pie -- as we now do boutique education" (Reinhardt, Boston Globe, 3/26).