When addressing the concern about the United States being able to provide fair access to health services there are two popular theories that most people agree with. The two contrasting theories are market justice and social justice and in this paper, the theory of social justice is discussed. Social justice believes healthcare should be on a population level instead of an individual basis and should not consider wealth as a requirement for healthcare. The term “social justice” was invented in the 19th century by critics of capitalism to describe the “good society” (Kristol, 1978, p. 58). This theory believes that healthcare is a societal responsibility, where the government would be the best choice to take over the responsibility of producing and distributing healthcare to the United States. In other words, social justice believes that healthcare should be available to everyone no matter individuals' ability to pay, and that it’s a societal right rather than an economic right.
There are many different characteristics of the social justice theory that diversify it from other theories. As stated above, social justice views health care as a social resource where everyone should be entitled to healthcare no matter their economic position. Similar to the system today, social justice requires active government involvement in health services delivery and assumes that the government is better equipped in delivering health resources correctly. Furthermore, it believes that medical resource allocation is determined by central planning and that the ability to pay for one’s health-related bills is unrelated to receiving medical care. It also states that access to medical services should be viewed as a basic right. Looking at countries across the world, plenty of them use the social justice theory towards their healthcare and have shown that this theory can work for delivering healthcare to a big population adding to the support of this theory. Looking at the social justice theory, many different theorists have voiced their opinion about the topic, one of them being Irving Kristol. In Kristol's work, “A Capitalist Conception of Justice” (1978), the philosophy of social justice is discussed as a protest against the capitalist distribution of income, believing that the government is the only power to decide on certain decisions.
This assumes that the government can make wise decisions. Kristol believes that social justice is where the “government will have, should have, and can have an authoritative knowledge as to what everyone merits or deserves in terms of the distribution of income and wealth” (Kristol, 1978, p. 222). Another theorist is Uwe Ernest Reinhardt, who speaks about how “Canadians and Europeans long ago reached a broad consensus that healthcare is a social good” (Reinhardt, 1994, p. 268). Reinhardt states that this philosophy has a good intention and that this nation isn’t the first to realize it, but it’s not as simple as letting the government be the sole decision-maker. Individuals who believe in social justice as the right path for our healthcare system, don’t like the inequality that results from our market today, so they pinpoint the government as the only power to make sure equality happens. If the United States healthcare did change to a social justice system, there would be major effects on all health professions and even everyday life.
Some of the changes would be that there would be a collective responsibility for health for everyone and everyone would be entitled to a basic package of benefits. Paul Feldstein, in his book, Health Policy Issues: An Economic Perspective on Health Reform states that “in the real world, no society can afford to provide unlimited amounts of healthcare to all its citizens” (1994). Feldstein discusses the unrealistic aspects of social justice, understanding that there would have to be a limit on the amount of healthcare that everyone got and that it wouldn’t become a perfect solution to the healthcare system today. Some of the other changes that would have to be incorporated would be a strong obligation to the collective good or the community well-being supersedes that of the individual which would be a big difference in the way that services are given to patients. In my chosen profession, I am aiming to be a medical coder within a healthcare facility and this change in the healthcare system will impact me hugely. The medical codes themselves are going to change, the billing system is going to change, and different policies are going to be put into place to follow the new system so this would completely change my whole chosen profession. Not only would having a social justice system impact the health professions around the United States, but it would also impact the medical community. The medical community would have to start coming up with public solutions to social problems, most of the medical problems would become much bigger and more complex than what they already are. Instead of trying to get each individual the correct care of medical attention that they need, there would be new planned rationing of health care for all individuals in any medical community.
This new system will be surrounded around the fact that it’s based on one’s medical needs rather than one’s ability to pay for services. The medical community will see an unhealthy individual as a problem that society must cure in order for the better good. In the social justice system, there are going to be many different changes made to the medical community and along with that to any health-related area. In terms of social justice, health care is a social good where any individual should be eligible for health care at any time despite their ability to pay for anything. Social justice believes that the United States government should be in control of delivering health care. Furthermore, there are plenty of theorists such as those mentioned in the paragraphs above, who focus on justifying why healthcare such as medicine and public health around the United States is a social need rather than economic. Widely supported by Healthy People 2020, social justice will bring a different aspect to the current healthcare system that the United States has been using. Having characteristics such as having equal access to medical services for everyone, requiring active government involvement in health services delivery, and seeing health care as a social resource it’s becoming a very popular topic.