Question

Health insurance and privacy A 21 year-old Japanese woman who is a university student has been considering going to see a psychiatrist. Since she has national health insurance, she has to pay the hospital only 30% of the total medical cost, which she thinks she can afford. What makes her pause, however, is that if she uses the national health insurance her hospital visits will be reported to her father through the company he is working for, which she does not want to happen. Details of treatment or prescribed medicines are not reported but because the name of hospital/clinic she attends will be reported her family can guess her conditions. This means she cannot hide the fact that she sees a psychiatrist and that will make them worry. This is because she is a dependent family member of her father in the national health insurance system until she starts to work after graduating from the university. Another option is that she pays all the cost by herself without using the national health insurance but then this is too costly and she cannot go to see a psychiatrist. She has been wondering what to do but she really does not want to let her family know about this and be worried about her.

In this case, what ethical theory can be applied. Does she have any privacy or confidentiality ?

Answer 1

Duty ethics suggests that an act would be ethical if it fulfill duty without worrying about the consequences. This would mean that if she uses the health insurance of her father, he would be notified that it’s been used by one of his dependents. Since she is a dependent, she has the duty to tell her father about her conditions without worrying about what would happen later. His father has the responsibility of protecting his own daughter, so he would do his duty by accepting it. This scenario poses the privacy issue because the data collected may not be reported but the intimation that someone has used the insurance would be notified thus, her visit wouldn’t remain secret anymore.