The necessary frugality of the elderly

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the pertinence and moral legitimacy of basing the allocation of public resources for health on the age variable, considered from the perspective of the theory of "justice as equity" as formulated by John Rawls. After characterizing the problem of public resource allocation for health -- confronted with the challenge posed by population aging -- and briefly presenting the concept of equity adopted in this study, as well as discussing the approach by Norman Daniels and Daniel Callahan to resource allocation among different age groups, we conclude that basing resource allocation on the age variable may be considered ethically adequate if we conceive the individual's life as a limited cycle of existence formed by different stages (childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, and death), during which the needs vary, such that the distribution of resources among different age groups should be based on an ethics of protection.