A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.

A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.

Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.

A landmark court case in California determined that a competent adult patient has the right to forgo medical treatment and the patient's autonomy supersedes the state's interest in preserving the patient's life.

Some clinicians and researchers believe that quality-of-life measurements are flawed, and using them in clinical decision making is dangerous.

A controversial Oregon plan used quality-of-life assessments to provide fewer health care services to a larger pool of Medicaid patients.

The conventional quality-adjusted life years approach to resource allocation has greater societal value if it is distributed among many rather than concentrated on a few, assuming that severity of illness is the same.

A medical ethicist outlines the merits and limitations of using quality-adjusted life years measurements in health care decision making.