A Rights-Based Approach to Health Care Reform

This presentation will analyze the scope and content of a rights-based approach to health care reform in the United States. Tracing the evolution of a health rights discourse in the United States, our research correlates international legal proclamations on the human right to health with U.S. political, legal, and public health thought on the subject of health care reform, reviewing the grounds upon which the right to health can be seen to have evolved in the U.S. health care debate. Based upon this analysis we identify the current stratified, market-based system of health care in the United States as a key barrier to realizing the human right to health. The presentation will focus on illustrating a rights-based approach to health care reform, using the recent federal reform debate and new health reform law as an example. Drawing on international legal standards, our analysis concludes that this latest iteration of federal health care reform has failed to fully meet the human rights principles of universality, equity, and accountability.