John Q Reflection

Introduction John Q. the movie was produced in 2002 and starred Denzel Washington (Burg, 2002). The movie portrays a typical American family who falls on hard times financially only to have their son also become critically ill. The child needs a heart transplant to survive and the health maintenance organization (HMO) will not cover the costs. In the film, the family’s health insurance plan, purchased through the husband’s employer, changes without the husband knowing. When his child becomes ill he is not worried as his understanding is that the insurance will cover the costs. Only to find out the coverage is not what he understood to be there. Learning they have very little insurance coverage, the husband and wife begin to …show more content…
Looking at John Q.’s actions from this point of view, then one could a call him a vigilante. He felt as though his son was not being treated fairly and he had to do something to save his life. As a caring father, he was a man that felt he had exhausted his resources, felt pressured by his wife, and that he had nowhere else to turn. To him this was his only way to save his child whom he loved very much. Nearing the end of the movie (Burg, 2002) he tells he never intended to harm anyone but had thought of killing himself as his last act of saving his child’s life. The moral principle of distributive justice applies in the family’s situation. They expected to be treated justly. As Munson (2012) discusses the fairness principle as the formal principle of distributive justice. Looking at two similar situations, why is it fair one receives and the other does not? It is fair that because the family lacked money up front, their son was not placed on the transplant list? Unfortunately, in our society money is required to provide care since without it employees could not provide for their own …show more content…
Health care insurance is different than other insurances. When we purchase health care, we expect to use it. When we purchase car insurance, we hope not to use it. Levine & Mulligan (2015) discuss overutilization of health insurance and how this has effected the insurance industry. Discussing practices designed to curb this “overuse”. Deductibles, not covering charges, not providing coverage to high risk persons, are all ways the industry works to reduce the costs. Is this corruption or good management practices? I feel that it may be some of both. After all the companies want to make a profit and how else can they do it but to cut