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Personal Responsibility for COVID-19 Vaccination: Do the Unvaccinated Deserve Public Funding for Their COVID-19 Related Medical Costs?

  • Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
  • Abbr : 의료윤리
  • 2023, 26(1), pp.17-32
  • Publisher : The Korean Society For Medical Ethics
  • Research Area : Medicine and Pharmacy > General Medicine
  • Received : February 10, 2023
  • Accepted : March 6, 2023
  • Published : March 31, 2023

LEE Kyungdo 1

1울산의대 인문사회의학교실

Accredited

ABSTRACT

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.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.