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KMID : 1025620230260010017
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Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
2023 Volume.26 No. 1 p.17 ~ p.32
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Personal Responsibility for COVID-19 Vaccination: Do the Unvaccinated Deserve Public Funding for Their COVID-19 Related Medical Costs?
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Lee Kyung-Do
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Abstract
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The head of South Korea’s COVID-19 policy committee has argued that it is unfair that individuals who choose not to be vaccinated against COVID-19 receive public funding for medical treatment related to COVID-19. Although these remarks were not connected to any change in the country’s COVID-19 policies, it is important, for both theoretical and practical reasons, to address the justifiability of a policy that would make unvaccinated individuals pay for their own COVID-19-related medical treatment. This article argues that it would be difficult to justify such a policy even from the standpoint of luck egalitarianism, which holds that it is fair for some to be worse off than others if the inequality in question is the result of choices those individuals made. Although it is often assumed that luck egalitarians would approve of policies that denied COVID-19-related medical treatment to individuals who choose not to vaccinate, this article shows that this assumption is not necessarily right. Additionally, this article also clarifies common misunderstandings of luck egalitarianism at the theoretical level.
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KEYWORD
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COVID-19, ethics, bioethics, medical ethics, health care ethics
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