[Scarcity in health care, age as selection criterion and the value of old age. Current discussion].

There is a growing attention for setting limits in health care. Contemporary medical scarcity makes choices necessary, but what are the arguments? Only medical criteria for selection are accepted in the Netherlands, but that does not mean at all that age is an unimportant criterion. In this article the discussion on age as criterion for selection is reviewed. It seems that arguments are based on different basic (moral) assumptions and that age and aging can be appreciated from different points of view. There is among other things the principle of justice and the idea of a natural life-span (Daniels), the norm of a worthwhile life-time (the fair-innings argument of Harris) and the idea of old age as a period of its own (Callahan). The different starting points can lead to the same way of thinking about age as a criterion for selection. Daniels, Harris, and Callahan justify this kind of selection. The Dunning-committee however does not accept it, from the point of a fundamental equality of people, the protection of life and the principle of solidarity in our society. It seems that not only the different arguments lead towards different conclusions but also the different views on the value of old age by different groups or by society as a whole.