A Right to Life is a Right to Health

I am not a health care economist. There are economists who devote their entire careers trying to understand how to design systems of health care delivery that are fair, equitable and affordable for all people in a given society. There are many models of health care delivery, some good, some bad, none perfect. However, our society is among a few whose constitution does not guarantee to all its citizens a right to health care. As a result our society deals in healthcare services as it would any other commodity, in the market place. A commodity to be distributed according to one’s ability to pay. In my opinion this practice is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.

The United States Declaration of Independence is in effect a declaration of human rights insofar as it affirms that all men (and women) are created equal. It mentions, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. This phrase gives three examples of the “unalienable rights”, which the Declaration says have been given to all human beings by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect. Can these three unalienable rights coexist without the most fundamental of all human rights namely, the right to preserve life? What is health care if not a human effort to preserve quality of life, which ultimately defines our sense of well being, hence happiness. Well being and happiness are so intertwined that we cannot enjoy (or pursue) the one without the other. Moreover, implicit in the phrases, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, “unalienable rights” and “all men created equal” is the affirmation that no one human life is worth more than the life of his/her neighbor. If no one life is superior or more worthy than another then how can we maintain the double standard that those with greater ‘net worth’ are entitled to preferential treatment when it comes to health care access. The United States is not yet “a perfect union”. But we aspire to be one.
In the 1960s we established two government run health care financing systems, Medicaid for the poor, and Medicare for the elderly. These were steps in the right direction but inequities in health care financing persist. The Affordable Care Act was another step in the right direction in that it expanded Medicaid for the working poor and increased access to health care services to millions more. It also sharpened the focus of health care away from simply a money based (fee for service) economy to one based on the delivery of quality care. However, the ACA was a compromise intended to please all stakeholders. In this regard it has failed. But we should not move backwards. This article describes what is necessary to improve and build on the benefits of the ACA.
In order to move forward we must first change our perception of what health care truly is. Is it a commodity or an unalienable right?