From market competition to solidarity? Assessing the prospects of U.S. health care reform plans from a human rights perspective.

نویسنده

  • Anja Rudiger
چکیده

Although the crisis of health care in the United States is widely acknowledged- marked by poor health outcomes, high costs, unequal access, and widening health inequities--its structural underpinnings have not been adequately addressed and reformers have settled on promoting piecemeal measures to avoid disruption. The human right to health care offers an analytical and advocacy framework for shifting the health care reform debate from individualist, market-based approaches to the collective responsibility for health care as a public good based on an assessment of the health care reform proposals put foward during the U.S. 2008 presidential primaries, the article argues that the emerging consensus among Democrats and health care advocacy organizations on incremental, market-based reforms ignores issues of equity, participation, and accountability. Alternately, the newly popularized concept of shared responsibility would reconnect rights to responsibilities and thus reinforce the public obligation to protect and provide health care. The article concludes by introducing the Human Right to Health Program, run by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), which seeks to advance the recognition of health care as a human right in the US by supporting grassroots partners and allies in their struggle for universal and equitable health care.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Health System Reform in the United States

In 2010, the United States adopted its first-ever comprehensive set of health system reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Implementation of the law, though politically contentious and controversial, has now reached a stage where reversal of most elements of the law is no longer feasible. The controversial portions of the law that expand affordable health insurance coverage to most U.S. cit...

متن کامل

The history and principles of managed competition.

Managed competition in health care is an idea that has evolved over two decades of research and refinement. It is defined as a purchasing strategy to obtain maximum value for consumers and employers, using rules for competition derived from microeconomic principles. A sponsor (either an employer, a governmental entity, or a purchasing cooperative), acting on behalf of a large group of subscribe...

متن کامل

Political and Cultural Foundations of Long-term Care Reform; Comment on “Financing Long-term Care: Lessons From Japan”

This paper comments on Naoki Ikegami’s editorial entitled “Financing long-term care: lessons from Japan.” Adding to the editorial, this paper focuses on analyzing the political and cultural foundations of long-term care (LTC) reform. Intergenerational solidarity and inclusive, prudential public deliberation are needed for the establishment or reform of LTC systems. Amon...

متن کامل

Policy Capacity for Health Reform: Necessary but Insufficient; Comment on “Health Reform Requires Policy Capacity”

Forest and colleagues have persuasively made the case that policy capacity is a fundamental prerequisite to health reform. They offer a comprehensive life-cycle definition of policy capacity and stress that it involves much more than problem identification and option development. I would like to offer a Canadian perspective. If we define health reform as re-orienting the health system from acut...

متن کامل

Globalization and Medical Tourism: The North American Experience; Comment on “Patient Mobility in the Global Marketplace: A Multidisciplinary Perspective”

Neil Lunt and Russel Mannion provide an overview of the current state of the medical tourism literature and propose areas for future research in health policy and management. The authors also identify the main unanswered questions in this field ranging from the real size of the medical tourism market to the particular health profiles of transnational patients. In addition, they highlight unexpl...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:
  • Health and human rights

دوره 10 1  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2008