Paper Example on Health Care: A Fundamental Human Right

The article commences with a definition of human rights that are entitled to every human and should be freely exercised to ensure a life of dignity, chief among these rights is the right to health care as the frailty of the human existence demands that the right to health care is protected as a public good. However, although the right to health care is internationally recognized, the author points out that in the United States, the citizens are not entitled to health care as a human right; rather the government has corrupted and replaced universal health care with universal health insurance. In this regard, the author's main points include how although Americans do not enjoy health care as a human right, the concept originated from the united states, which led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); a codification of our human rights that included the essential right to health.

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The article further evaluates how the united states government has constantly violated UDHR's conditions for essential right to health care by setting up a health care system that discriminates against people in poverty and minority groups in regards to accessing health care because as opposed to the UDHR, the United States' provision of health care is dependent on a person's ability to pay, their citizenship, race, socioeconomic status among other conditions. Consequently, as the system, views health care as a commodity and is set up to maximize profits, the united states government is in actuality restricting, as opposed to improving, the right to health care. The author concludes by posing a call to action to all people living in the US to claim their right to health care by demanding that the government stops promoting insurance as a way of universal health care, as a system that profits off of human suffering cannot provide equity and only denies individuals their human rights.

Subsequently, the article possesses various strengths, as in addition to the vast experience of the author, the information presented is based on factual data obtained from reputable government websites as well as information obtained by the author from interviews of various participants affected by the current insurance-based health care system. The author of the article is a retired attorney and a current board member of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a leader of the health care Justice Team at Rights and Democracy Vermont, a member of the United States Human Rights Network's (USHRN) International Mechanisms Coordinating Committee, and co-chair of USHRN's Universal Periodic Review Taskforce. As such, the author and the article are highly credible in this topic area. Consequently, the information presented in the article is adequately relevant to the topic of health care and is beneficial as a critical resource in this subject area.

The main reason that the author wrote the article is that in the United States, the right to universal health care for every citizen has been confused by the right to universal health insurance. The right to universal health insurance, as pointed out by the author, is not equivalent to universal health care. Rather, health insurance is more business-oriented and is subject to a person's race, religions, socioeconomic status among other contingents, which is contrary to the definition of human rights which should exist and apply to all individuals regardless of culture, race, religious affiliation, nationality or socioeconomic status.

References

Gerisch, M. (2018, August 1). Health Care As a Human Right. American Bar Association. Retrieved from: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/health-care-as-a-human-right/