Why Health Care Shouldn’t be a “Right”
A very good report from Jacob Mchangama on why health care should NOT be considered a “right”:
The idea that governments should be legally obliged to provide healthcare for their citizens has become mainstream. The “right to health” forms the basis of policy for the UN, many international NGOs and development agencies, and exists in the constitutions of many countries.
‘If the development community is serious about human rights and improving health, they would switch their focus away from the “right” to health and toward the fundamental rights currently denied to hundreds of millions of people in poorer parts of the world,’
There is no evidence that “the right to health” has actually improved healthcare anywhere in the world – in some cases it has undermined it by imposing huge burdens on already over-stretched judicial systems.
The “right to health” also serves as a convenient way for authoritarian governments to deflect attention from violations of the most basic civil and political rights.
In reality, the rights which are really fundamental to improved healthcare are those which underpin prosperity and economic development – such as the right to own and exchange property and the right to free speech. Such rights are denied to millions, yet are vital for creating the prosperity needed to pay for good healthcare, Mchangama concludes.
Makes for a very interesting read.
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