Summarize the two articles and explain how decisions or in the case of governmental polices prove to be ethical or unethical and impact different levels of society.

What if the government doesn't act, is that ethical?

Article: 1

It's an age of incivility: How business leaders can help

Kelly Gooch -

It's a trend that many people have noticed recently front-line employees across industries, including healthcare, are facing increased rants, insults and rudeness. This raises the question: What can business leaders do to improve the situation?

Christine Porath, PhD, a professor of management at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., sets out to answer this question in a Harvard Business Review article published Nov. 9.

Dr. Porath has studied incivility which she defines as "rudeness, disrespect or insensitive behavior" for more than two decades.

In August, she designed a new survey about the topic to gauge how people worldwide have recently experienced rudeness.

She said data in the new survey is based on more than 2,000 people in more than 25 industries in various roles. Respondents included both front-line employees and those who had observed them in the workplace. Dr. Porath found that 76 percent of respondents experience incivility at least once monthly, and 78 percent witness incivility at work at least that often. This compares to nearly half of the workers she surveyed worldwide in 2005 who said they were treated rudely at work at least once monthly. The number was up to 55 percent in 2011, and 62 percent by 2016.

"People are nastier than ever to frontline employees. The effects are costly to those who serve us, witnesses, businesses, and society. I hope we improve," Dr. Porath told Fortune.

The Atlantic's Olga Khazan published a piece in March titled, "Why People Are Acting So Weird," for which she spoke with more than a dozen experts on crime, psychology and social norms about contributing factors to rudeness. Stress was one contributing factor identified, among others.

Dr. Porath recommends that business leaders tackle the issue by addressing the full employee experience recruiting, coaching, scoring and practicing.

More specifically, she recommends conducting structured behavioral interviews and asking candidates questions like, "Tell me about a time when you've had to deal with stress or conflict at work. What did you do?"

She also recommends "set[ting] expectations and establish[ing] norms for how people interact with one another, and for what they should do when others don't adhere to the norms." Additionally, she said business leaders should recognize and reward civility, as well as ensure workers "have the tools they need to protect themselves from uncivil behavior both in the moment and over time."

Article: 2

Deloitte: Inflation could make consumers, healthcare system sicker

Alan Condon -

From 2001 to 2021, the cost of healthcare increased faster (3.3 percent) than the cost of all goods and services (2.2 percent). With U.S. inflation hitting its highest point in 40 years, consumers are making difficult choices about household expenses, including whether or not they can afford medical care, according to a survey conducted by Deloitte.

On the other hand, inflation, a challenging labor market and ongoing supply chain issues are placing financial stress on hospitals, health systems and clinicians, and these costs could be passed on to the consumer, according to the survey, which found that inflation concerns are already affecting consumers' healthcare decisions.

In response to rising expenses, some patients are delaying routine care, cancer screenings and preventive care, among others. These delays can exacerbate health issues and later force people to visit high-cost settings such as the emergency room, especially when minor health issues develop into major ones, Deloitte found. These costs, some of which can be prevented, could ripple through the healthcare system and push health spending even higher.

Five takeaways from the research:

1. Inflation is the top reason nearly one-third of Americans are concerned about covering unexpected health care needs.

2. Twenty-eight percent of consumers surveyed or about 72 million American adults based on 2020 U.S. Census data feel less prepared to pay for routine and unexpected medical costs than they did last year.

3. Thirty percent of consumers are either "planning" (13 percent) or "still deciding" (17 percent) to change their health insurance plans to cut costs for the 2023 health insurance enrollment.

4. Twenty-six percent of consumers who don't have a health plan that covers virtual visits intend to change their health plans to accommodate.

5. Almost two-thirds of consumers who had virtual healthcare visits last year cited convenience (38 percent) or cost (27 percent) as the top reasons why they sought virtual health.

With these results in mind, it's critical that hospitals and health systems find ways to offset the effect of inflation on consumers' ability to interact with the health system before they opt out entirely, and virtual health may be a viable solution.

"The convergence of inflation with the demands from today's empowered health care consumer may be the catalyst for industry change that propels us toward virtual and digital health options that are designed to be more convenient, affordable and accessible," Asif Dhar, MD, vice chair and U.S. life sciences and healthcare industry leader at Deloitte, said in a Nov. 14 news release. "This will require rethinking how services are delivered, how consumers can be empowered to take control of their health earlier and more proactively. This can accelerate transitioning to new models of screening, prevention, care and cure that we call the 'Future of Health.'"