Social Responsibility and Healthcare in Finland

Abstract

This article examines current trends and prospects in Finnish healthcare literature and discussion. The Finnish healthcare system was long considered to manifest an equal, universal, and solidaristic welfare scheme. However, recent data reveals structural inequalities in access to healthcare that result in health differences among socioeconomic groups. The political will aims at tackling these inequalities, but the ideological trend toward responsibilization of the individual taking place across political spheres elsewhere in Europe creates potential challenges to this goal. The applications of this trend have a theoretical background in the responsibility-sensitive egalitarian-or luck egalitarian-tradition. The theory, which is unfit for real-life policy applications, has explicit appeal in considerations aiming at the responsibilization of the individual within the healthcare sector. It remains to be seen in which direction the Finnish welfare schemes will continue to develop.

Personal Responsibility in Health and Health Care: Luck Egalitarianism as a Plausible and Flexible Approach to Health

“…Some critiques point to the implausibility of luck egalitarianism in the context of some specific disease or behavior (Feiring 2008; Fleck 2011; Mailly 2005; Nielsen and Andersen 2014). Others claim that luck egalitarianism is in general an unattractive theory of health (Ahola-Launonen 2016, 2018; Bærøe and Cappelen 2015; Buyx and Prainsack 2012; Cavallero 2011; Levy 2018, 2019; Nielsen 2013; Nielsen and Axelsen 2012; Schmidt 2009). Each of these approaches has a distinct weakness.…”

“…Discussing luck egalitarianism in such a narrow way has led to claims that luck egalitarianism fails to appreciate the various ways social factors undermine responsibility (Brown 2013, 3–4; Daniels 2008, 76; Fleck 2011, 7). 2 Others suggest that luck egalitarians will introduce responsibility-sensitive measures, which adversely affect those who are worst off (Ahola-Launonen 2016, 460; Cavallero 2011; Ruger 2010, 154). For example, Cavallero (2011, 401) suggests thatA policy of imposing personal liability for option-luck healthcare costs will tend to be regressive in its effects, hitting the worst off the hardest and thus .…”

Discrimination Based on Personal Responsibility: Luck Egalitarianism and Healthcare Priority Setting

“…13 Luck egalitarianism is a controversial theory, especially in the context of health. 14 It has been claimed to be overly harsh toward the imprudent, 15 require people to reveal intimate histories in assessing responsibility, 16 unfairly affect the worst off, 17 allow people to gradually descend into a very bad state of affairs, 18 and fail to protect capacity for future choices. 19 There is a rich literature addressing the various merits of these objections.…”

Social responsibility and subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19: The mediating role of job involvement

“…Social responsibility refers to the individual’s ethical care and obligation to others and society ( Ahola-Launonen, 2016 ; Gay, 2021 ). Volunteers participate in volunteer activities because of their sense of social responsibility, which drives them to do what is beneficial to society ( Brusa and Barilan, 2021 ).…”