Health care is a human right

The economic crisis has exacerbated the health care crisis. It has affected access to coverage as millions have lost their jobs—directly losing health care or losing the income that paid for health care. While workers are losing jobs, insurance, homes and savings, the Obama administration has expressed no obligation, let alone any urgency in fulfilling the right to health care. Such urgency has applied to bailing out bankers, CEOs, and the capitalist class—who caused the crisis. They have been the recipients of the most massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the ruling class in history.

What the administration has done is initiate a debate on health care reform. However, that debate falls far short, because it fails to recognize health care as a right and seeks to protect the profits of the health care industry.

The right to health care has been enshrined in numerous international agreements. The U.S. government, despite being a signatory, has never fulfilled its obligations under those agreements. Even though most Americans believe that health care is a human right, it remains a privilege of the wealthy and not the right of all.

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, the Soviet Union—a socialist country where health care was treated as a right—fought for the primacy of the right to health and health care, along with other social, economic and cultural rights, among human rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt, head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 1948, led the drafting discussions of the UDHR. She did so representing the United States and summed up its position: “… my government has made it clear in the course of the development of the Declaration that it does not consider that the economic and social and cultural rights stated in the Declaration imply an obligation on governments to assure the enjoyment of these rights by direct governmental action.” She added, “This in no way affects our wholehearted support for the basic principles of economic, social and cultural rights set forth in these articles.”

As they participated in the drafting of a declaration that viewed health care to be a right, the U.S. government—made up of the wealthy representatives of the owners of banks and industry—made it clear that they had no intentions of supporting the rights enshrined in the document. The emptiness of such rhetorical support for a right whose enjoyment need not be assured by the government is self-evident.

The U.S. ruling class, and its representatives in the White House and Congress, has continued to rhetorically support the idea of health care while not ensuring access to it.

Despite its rhetoric about the right to health care, the current administration has shown no support for any proposed reform of the system that will fulfill this right. Single-payer health care—a comprehensive, public plan for covering every person in the United States—is the only currently proposed reform that could move towards a solution of the U.S. health care crisis.

Moreover, the current health reform process is bound to exacerbate and further institutionalize the inequities that define health care in the United States. In a May 23 C-SPAN interview, Obama laid out the goals of his plan. He stressed the “competitive disadvantage” faced by U.S. businesses caused by health care costs, the need to reign in Medicare and Medicaid to reduce deficits and debt, and his commitment to preserving already existing health insurance plans.

“What we want to do is also to make sure that everybody has basic coverage. Now, they may not have the gold-plated Cadillac health insurance, but it doesn’t make sense in a country as wealthy as ours that if you are working full time, you should be able to afford health care.” His statement makes clear that the best workers can hope for is “basic coverage” for health care they can “afford.”

Undocumented workers would not even get that, as Sen. Baucus made clear when he explained that covering undocumented workers is too “politically explosive.”

Who decides what basic or affordable means? Even if a government-sponsored plan such as advocated by Obama and Sen. Ted Kennedy, should materialize, those who cannot afford to pay the required premiums will still be left out. Of course, many Democrats as well as Republicans are fighting any public plan at all, as it would be unfair to the health insurance industry. As long as there is a profit to be made by providing medical care to those with “gold-plated Cadillac health insurance,” rather than to those with “basic coverage,” the same disparities that plague health and health care in America will continue.Health care is a right, not a commodity

Coverage is not the same as care. Basic, affordable coverage—as defined by the current system dominated by insurance and pharmaceutical companies—cannot fulfill the right to health care if a person lives in a medically underserved urban or rural area; has no money for premiums, co-pays, deductibles or transportation; or cannot afford to take time off work. A worker may also have coverage that only provides basic health services and does nothing for that person during a medical crisis or when additional care is needed.

The current debate treats health care as a commodity whose sale must be reformed to protect U.S. business and financial interests while addressing to some extent the crisis of the uninsured. This strips health care of its place among human rights. It enables Obama to declare the single payer reform he once championed to be impractical and not politically feasible. It enables Baucus to proclaim that everything is on the table except single payer, and that the neither free nor universal government-run public option, though still on the table, “… might be a bit on the side of the table.” It enables those in the White House and Congress who are speaking for reform likely to push through government-mandated purchase of health insurance by workers, thus transferring more wealth from the working class to the ruling class.

The pharmaceutical industry is the third most profitable industry in the United States. Health care interests have spent more on lobbying than any other sector this year. The salaries of CEOs of non-profit hospitals average $780,000 and those of major academic medical centers top $4 million. The top compensation of CEOs of the top 15 big pharmaceutical companies surpasses $29 million. There is no doubt that the U.S. health care system is a for-profit system that cares little for the rights of working people. The solution for the health care crisis is to remove this profit motive from the system. Health care should be run not with the profits of big business in mind.

Where health care is recognized as a human right, not as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, coverage is universal and care is comprehensive. Cuba has built, with far fewer resources than are handed to the U.S. private system, such a health care system. The right to free, universal health care is constitutionally guaranteed. In Cuba, health care is not determined by the profit of a few but the needs of the people in general.

Health care is not a commodity, nor is it a privilege. Health care is a fundamental right that should be ensured for all.