Trust decay in the American healthcare delivery system

Abstract

This treatise examines the four main principles of biomedical ethics, i.e., beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice, and their impact on the healthcare system and providers legally permitted to prescribe or recommend medicines in the United States. It defines the four principles of biomedical ethics and describes how failure to achieve them has contributed to trust decay in the United States healthcare delivery system over the last several decades, that is to say, medical mistrust. An illustrative case of conflicts will be presented that provides insight into whether protocols practiced by the healthcare delivery system to treat intractable pain conform to the principles of biomedical ethics. The increasing distrust in the American healthcare delivery system of two disparate minority populations will be examined. An illustrative case study of a disabled patient’s experiences with the standardized healthcare delivery system provides insight into healthcare delivery system administratively mandated policies that may violate the principles of biomedical ethics resulting in established medical protocols that require disabled intractable pain patients to succumb to an addiction disorder.