Gawande assumes that health care is available to all people. His essay describes two kinds of health care — incremental care and rescue medicine — available to patients, but he does not mention that...

Gawande assumes that health care is available to all people. His essay describes two kinds of health care — incremental care and rescue medicine — available to patients, but he does not mention that there are many people who have no access to any kind of health care. Gawande writes, “Rescue [medicine] saved my son’s life. But without incremental medicine he would never have the long and full life that he could” (par. 82).

How does the inclusion of the anecdote about Gawande’s son and the other examples of patients who were helped by either incremental or rescue medicine obscure the issue of access to health care? What assumptions do you have about access and the health care system?

Do your assumptions come from your experiences, what you learned in school, or from your parents or friends? What do your assumptions reveal to you about what you value? How much do you value access to health care? How important is it to you that everyone has the same access?