Claiming a Personal Freedom When Others Pay the Price
One would imagine the intensity of the newest cry for freedom swelling across the country would be generated by an equally significant goal – perhaps freedom from terror, foreign domination, dictatorship, slavery, economic servitude, universal surveillance.
But no. This cry for freedom is to be free not to take a vaccine the government pays for, a vaccine with the potential of protecting everyone from a pandemic that has already infected nearly 47 millions of Americans, resulting in more than 750,000 deaths. A pandemic with a new variant that has affected mostly the unvaccinated.
The freedom being claimed is personal, individual. It is the “freedom to make our own decisions”. Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, says it is the people’s right “to make the best decision for themselves”. Aaron Rodgers, who needs no introduction in Wisconsin, rests his claim for freedom on his strong belief “in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body.” This “freedom’ that has been elevated to such great importance is the freedom not to spend the 20 seconds and endure the pain of a needle prick that comes with getting vaccinated.
The exercise of that personal freedom, however, has impacted all of our lives. Like all freedoms, it isn’t free. Someone always pays. In this case the costs are passed on to all of us. Society at large. All of our lives are interrupted. The pandemic intensifies. More people are sick. More people are dying. Intensive care units fill up. Health care workers burn out. Health care costs go up. Insurance rates increase. We all pay for the personal freedom claimed by some.
The stories are many of how costs are shifted. Because of the infectious nature of the disease, COVID patients have been put at the head of the line for hospital beds, for intensive care units, for treatment generally. Other patients, even with life threatening conditions, have had needed surgery and treatment postponed. Some have died.
States that have refused to mandate preventive measures for COVID, export their patients to neighboring states because their own hospital beds are full.
In a study released last month, Morning Consult reported that 18 percent of health care workers have quit their jobs during the COVID pandemic, while another 31 percent have considered leaving. Among the reasons for leaving are burnout and COVID safety concerns. Quality of care suffers, burnout increases. The cycle feeds on itself as those who remain are working harder, longer hours and under more stress.
Texas and Florida while blocking requirements for individuals to take a vaccine that costs $20 a dose, provide “free” infusions of monoclonal antibodies (at a cost to taxpayers of $2,100) for those who become infected.
Delta Airlines, a company that self-insures health care for its employees, reports the average hospital stay for COVID costs Delta $50,000 per person.
Health care providers across the country report that since vaccines have become readily available the large majority of COVID infections, particularly those that have required hospitalization, have occurred among those who have chosen not to be vaccinated.
Would those choices have been different if those making them had faced the full cost of their choice? If they had not been able to pass on the full dollar cost of medical treatment to the rest of us through higher taxes and insurance premiums?
Would those choices have been different if those infected had to wait their turn for hospital beds, ventilators, and intensive care units, instead of jumping to the head of the line?
Would those choices have been different if health care workers were not willing to work the extra hours and take the extra risks to provide treatment?
For economists, the answer is a clear “yes”. Cost-shifting changes behavior. Not having to pay the full cost, those taking the action indulge themselves. The result is overall increased costs to the economy and society at large.
We see the effect in our use of energy. We burn too much fossil fuels because we don’t pay the full cost when we turn on the lights or fill up the tank. The total bill arrives later wrapped in a package of air pollution and climate change and usually addressed to someone else.
The freedom to refuse the vaccine is not just a “personal” freedom. The choice affects all of us.
Personal freedoms that affect others are routinely limited. Because of the danger to myself and others, the law says I can’t drive 80 miles per hour. I once paid a $120 fine because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. These limits on personal freedom come because the cost of crashes and injuries get passed on to others.
The question is not a yes or no question. There is a continuum. The personal freedom that one wants to claim may be very important or less important. The costs that are passed on to others can be smaller or greater. There is more reason to limit a less significant personal freedom that has large social costs than a significant personal freedom that has small social costs.
In the case of COVID vaccines, the personal freedom being claimed is, in the grand scale of things, an insignificant freedom. The social costs are high. The reasons for limiting that personal freedom are compelling.
One could make the case, that the question has become not so much one of personal freedom as one of political choice. The counties in this country with the lowest vaccination rates, the highest infection rates, the most severe cases requiring hospitalization, and the most deaths are the counties with the highest percentage of voters who voted for Trump in the last election.
Before the vaccines became available the incidence of COVID was spread relatively evenly between red and blue counties. It was only after the vaccines became available and people had a choice to take them or not that the connection to political belief began to appear and then widen.
The essential question we have to ask as we contemplate the question of the relationship of personal freedoms to social costs is this. Are we a group of individuals responsible only to ourselves, or are we a community with shared responsibilities?
If we are individuals, we can make our own choices and pay the cost ourselves. If we are a community, we can make decisions together and share the cost.
It is inherently contradictory and ultimately unsustainable to claim personal freedoms and expect or demand that the community pay the cost. At some point the community fractures.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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