Getting Paid To Be Vaccinated - YES or NO?
Written by Rachel Wang
Edited by Charan Karthik
May 2, 2021
Edited by Charan Karthik
May 2, 2021
Are you ready to get vaccinated? Do you have any concerns about side-effects and not wanting to be vaccinated? Then how do you think about being paid for vaccinations? Recently, politicians and scholars have had some different opinions on whether people should be paid to get vaccinated.
Since December 2020 when the first batch of vaccines for COVID-19 prevention was shipped out to the United States, there has been a steady stream of discussions among the general U.S. public about whether to get vaccinated. The controversy is nothing more than the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccines. As the vaccine has only been on the market recently, many people are reluctant to be vaccinated due to their unfamiliarity and distrust. However, in order to gain herd immunity, more than 82% of the population should be vaccinated (Iboi et al., 2020). To address the problem, the government and policymakers have proposed some solutions, including paying people to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
There were two payment-for-vaccination proposals, one suggested by Robert Litan, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution, and the other one was introduced by John Delaney, a former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Litan planned to pay $1000 without tax to those who are vaccinated - $200 as an initial payment when deciding to be vaccinated and $800 as the remaining if the national vaccine uptake threshold is reached (Litan, 2020). Delaney proposed to offer people in the U.S. who are vaccinated $1500 (Delaney, 2020). The former proposal has an estimated cost of $275 billion, and the latter will require approximately $383 billion.
However, the authors Largent and Miller believe that payment for vaccination is “not only unnecessary, but problematic” (Largent & Miller, 2021).
First of all, they claim that people have a social responsibility, moral responsibility, and the duty to protect one’s own health. They argued that people should voluntarily be vaccinated to stop the pandemic, rather than being encouraged by rewards for doing so.
Secondly, the authors point out that as the number of hospitalizations and deaths has increased, most people are eager to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Even though there are reported cases of adverse health effects due to vaccination, people will be willing to get vaccinated once they see others being vaccinated without any side effects. Especially Anthony Fauci, the nationally prominent politician and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, has already been vaccinated and faced no adverse health problems. Therefore, the authors believe that the payment would be unnecessary and such a large cost should be spent in other ways in response to the epidemic.
Moreover, for those populations who are negatively impacted by the pandemic, the payment-for-vaccination proposals seem to be problematic. Some citizens lost their jobs and experienced food and housing issues. They may think of the payment as an unfair option, and will be forced to get vaccinated in order to get cash to pay housing or buy food. In this case, the payment would be an ethical concern.
Lastly, people may subconsciously associate payment offers with risky consequences or behaviors. While they are not completely confident and trustful of the government, they might question - why would the government pay them if the vaccinations are truly safe and effective? Under these circumstances, the cash reward mechanism would make these people more reluctant about vaccinations.
Overall, Largent and Miller assert that the payment-for-vaccination policy should be accepted only when voluntary vaccination is not able to obtain herd immunity. With that being said, the current situation obviously does not fall into this category. Thus, they believe that the funds should be used elsewhere to increase voluntary vaccination.
Citation:
Delaney, J.K. (2020, November 23). Pay Americans to take a coronavirus vaccine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/23/pay-americans-coronavirus-vaccine-john-delaney/
Enahoro A. Iboi, Calistus N. Ngonghala, Abba B. Gumel, Will an imperfect vaccine curtail the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.?, Infectious Disease Modelling, Volume 5, 2020, Pages 510-524, ISSN 2468-0427, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idm.2020.07.006.
Largent, E. A., & Miller, F. G. (2021, January 6). Problems With Paying People to Be Vaccinated Against COVID-19. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775005.
Litan, R. E. (2020, August 18). Want herd immunity? Pay people to take the vaccine. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/want-herd-immunity-pay-people-to-take-the-vaccine/.