A Fair and Optimal Approach to Sequential Healthcare Rationing
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866916739098345472 |
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| author | Sun, Zhaohong |
| author_facet | Sun, Zhaohong |
| contents | The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the urgent need for fair and effective allocation of scarce resources, from hospital beds to vaccine distribution. In this paper, we study a healthcare rationing problem where identical units of a resource are divided into different categories, and agents are assigned based on priority rankings. % We first introduce a simple and efficient algorithm that satisfies four fundamental axioms critical to practical applications: eligible compliance, non-wastefulness, respect for priorities, and maximum cardinality. This new algorithm is not only conceptually simpler but also computationally faster than the Reverse Rejecting rules proposed in recent work. % We then extend our analysis to a more general sequential setting, where categories can be processed both sequentially and simultaneously. For this broader framework, we introduce a novel algorithm that preserves the four fundamental axioms while achieving additional desirable properties that existing rules fail to satisfy. Furthermore, we prove that when a strict precedence order over categories is imposed, this rule is the unique mechanism that satisfies these properties. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_06082 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Fair and Optimal Approach to Sequential Healthcare Rationing Sun, Zhaohong Computer Science and Game Theory 91B68 F.2; I.2 The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the urgent need for fair and effective allocation of scarce resources, from hospital beds to vaccine distribution. In this paper, we study a healthcare rationing problem where identical units of a resource are divided into different categories, and agents are assigned based on priority rankings. % We first introduce a simple and efficient algorithm that satisfies four fundamental axioms critical to practical applications: eligible compliance, non-wastefulness, respect for priorities, and maximum cardinality. This new algorithm is not only conceptually simpler but also computationally faster than the Reverse Rejecting rules proposed in recent work. % We then extend our analysis to a more general sequential setting, where categories can be processed both sequentially and simultaneously. For this broader framework, we introduce a novel algorithm that preserves the four fundamental axioms while achieving additional desirable properties that existing rules fail to satisfy. Furthermore, we prove that when a strict precedence order over categories is imposed, this rule is the unique mechanism that satisfies these properties. |
| title | A Fair and Optimal Approach to Sequential Healthcare Rationing |
| topic | Computer Science and Game Theory 91B68 F.2; I.2 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.06082 |