Title: Is health care a right or a privilege in the United States?

Biography:

Abstract

A right is something that is guaranteed and protected by a higher authority, such as a government, whereas a privilege is a special advantage or benefit that is granted to a person, a group, or to a category of people. A privilege, therefore, is granted to some and denied to others. The right to health care, or as some would say, the right to health, is a basic human right, as codified by international human rights law by the World Health Organization (1946), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the World Conference on Human Rights (1993). This presentation will compare the opinions of experts in the field of health care as to whether it is a right or a privilege in the United States. Most Americans access health care through their employers; for those people health care is a right. However, since 2005 most new jobs added to the economy have been classified as part-time, temporary, or seasons, which mean that they don’t provide access to health care for employees. While the majority of Americans claim to be in favour of universal health care, the United States doesn’t have it; 44 million Americans have no health insurance and 38 million Americans are underinsured. This presentation will examine some of the arguments surrounding the controversial subject of universal health care in an attempt to understand why we don’t have it. The history of connecting access to health care through employment will also be discussed.