The current public health crisis associated with the global pandemic of COVID-19 imposes significant ethical considerations related to justice and equality for the patients. The rising scale of the pandemic causes problems with resource allocation when providing health care to the continuously increasing number of patients impacted by the coronavirus. Therefore, changes to medical care delivery need to be made to ensure that scarce resources are distributed with equality and justice. These changes might have some significant effect on the medical system of the USA, especially on the background of the changing political atmosphere in the country.
The new Supreme Court Justice might undermine the provision of the Affordable Care Act due to the change in the political vector that is aimed at the elimination of this legislation. The principle of justice as applied to the sphere of health care relates to the equal treatment of patients without discrimination (Reid, 2020). The Affordable Care Act states that no discrimination is allowed on the basis of age. However, given the recent events caused by the COVID-19 pandemics, the scarcity of resources demands the implementation of the triage process where certain categories of patients are to be prioritized on the basis of a set of factors, including age.
Such a change in policies will be unethical because all people deserve justice in access to medical care. As stated by Reid (2020), the triage implies discrimination because they “deserve not to have their chance taken away because it is smaller than another’s” (p. 527). However, given the acute nature of the crisis, the triage might be beneficial to the patients who are favored by the system but will be non-beneficial for those who have been systematically discriminated against.
Reference
Reid, L. (2020). Triage of critical care resources in COVID-19: A stronger role for justice. Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(8), 526-530.