Healthcare is a Right
For several years, there has been an active debate among many Americans in the United States and their position on health care. For some individuals, health care is believed to be a commodity and an earned privilege. However, many feel that health care is a basic human right and follow universal and egalitarian guiding principles. Most importantly, health care is a fundamental right, just like food and water. According to the 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization, its preamble defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. The preamble further states that, “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.” Overall, accessibility to health care is a major factor that must be addressed. As a nation, we have the responsibility to achieve social justice and support the systems that sustain the human right to health care.
Some of the recent questions and concerns encompassing the right to health care include issues that address access, fairness, choice, value, quality and cost. On a national level, our health care system is economically draining. The United States is already the world’s biggest health care spender, surpassing countries that provide universal health care access. It spends the highest percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, more than any other developed country. According to Santerre and Neunn (2013), this amounted to 17.9% of GDP in 2011 and that the United States spent nearly $1 out of every $5 on health care. Yet last year, 48.6 million Americans did not have access to health services (DeNavas-Walt et al., 2012).
So who are the uninsured and why are they