Classical Liberalism and the Distribution of Benefits and Burdens with respect to Health-Care
Date
2023-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
The South African government is proposing major health policy reforms, the National Health Insurance (NHI), in response to extreme inequalities in healthcare, where the middle and upper classes have access to quality healthcare in the private sector and the majority is subjected to poor healthcare in the public sector. The debate is fierce among South Africans as to what should be the appropriate healthcare policy for the country. Fundamentally, healthcare is an ethical issue of how benefits and burdens should be distributed in society and can better be understood through moral reflection. At the heart of this study is a critical review of one of the influential theories of justice, namely, classical liberalism that normally finds its expression in social and economic policies and in this case the focus is on healthcare. The question that this study seeks to answer is: can classical liberalism produce the right distribution of benefits and burdens with respect to healthcare? The suggestion of this study is that classical liberalism gives an inadequate account of how to distribute benefits and burdens with respect to healthcare. For more coherent accounts, the study proposes that we need to look in the direction of John Rawls and social equality. Government’s approach seems to borrow from elements of Rawls and social equality.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts in Applied Ethics for Professionals, to the Faculty of Human Sciences, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023.
Keywords
National Health Insurance (NHI), Inequalities in healthcare, Quality healthcare, Poor healthcare, Private sector, Public sector, South Africa, UCTD
Citation
Tsengiwe, Siyabulela Thomas. (2023). Classical Liberalism and the Distribution of Benefits and Burdens with respect to Health-Care. [Master's dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. WIReDSpace. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/40353