![\"global-healthcare3\"](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/global-healthcare3-150x119.jpg\" "\\"global-healthcare3\\"")
As Congress enters the final stretch in pushing forward a health care reform bill, I have been struck by the fact that during the ongoing debate very few people seem to pose the question of whether access to health care constitutes a human right.\u00a0 Yet, in many countries around the world, this perspective forms the starting point of their national debates\u2014and this consensus inevitably directs their public policy on universal health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, while in Peru I received a grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct research on the right to mental health for survivors of the country\u2019s internal armed conflict.\u00a0 In the course of the study<\/a>, I interviewed many government officials, advocates from non-governmental organizations and ordinary citizens.\u00a0 None of these people questioned the basic premise of my study which was that health is a human right, as enshrined in international treaties such as the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights <\/a>(ICESCR).\u00a0<\/p>\n Article 12 of the ICESCR provides that \u201cThe States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard<\/em> of physical and mental health.\u201d The Covenant has been ratified<\/a> by 160 countries in the world, but not the United States.\u00a0 The 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization <\/a>(WHO) recognizes that the right to health is a fundamental right \u201cwithout distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.\u201d \u00a0Significantly, the United Nations General Assembly (composed of representatives from 192 member countries\u00a0<\/a>adopted a resolution in 2003 reaffirming the right to health.<\/p>\n Professor Eleanor D. Kinney, Co-director of <\/strong>the Hall Center for Law and Health<\/strong> at Indiana University School of Law conducted a study in 2004 <\/a>found 67.5% of countries to include the right to health \u00a0in their national constitution.\u00a0 The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world not to guarantee access to health care<\/a>, through universal health care, as a right of citizenship.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Given this global recognition of the right to health, I often wonder why Americans seem so afraid of moving in this direction and catching up with our peers.\u00a0 Why is health reform so controversial?\u00a0<\/p>\n Is it the cost?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Maybe, except we permit millions of tax dollars to be spent daily on bank bail-outs, wars in foreign countries, emergency aid for developing nations, and even stimulus money to build our national infrastructure like highways and bridges.\u00a0 \u00a0One estimate<\/a> puts the health reform cost at $1.05 trillion over 10 years,\u00a0which is almost as much as we will spend on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan <\/a>by 2010 ($1.3 trillion).\u00a0 However, since health costs currently outpace the growth of the economy, this initial up-front investment would lead to long term savings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is it a misunderstanding of what universal means?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 People often believe that the right to health means everyone will be able to demand perfect health — the \u201cright to be healthy.\u201d\u00a0 But the ICESCR recognizes that the right to health is subject to \u201cprogressive implementation\u201d<\/a> and strives towards a minimum acceptable baseline that is attainable.<\/p>\n Is it a mistrust of government?<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0Some speculate that health care access and quality will decline if there is universal health care.\u00a0 But more and more reports on comparative systems in places like Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Germany are debunking this claim.\u00a0 National Public Radio <\/a>covered the story of one American middle aged couple had to move to Mexico because his childhood polio problems prevented him from working, and she was denied coverage because she survived cancer twenty years ago\u2014they literally could not afford to stay here (even though he was a retired military officer).\u00a0 Once in Mexico, they were enrolled in the government health plan (which is tax dollar funded although the couple paid a few hundred dollars annually).\u00a0 They reported that the care was \u201cexcellent.\u201d<\/p>\n Is there an unwavering belief in the free market?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Perhaps, but it seems that leaving universal health care to the market is not working.\u00a0 According to the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a>, nearly 47 million Americans, or 20 percent of the population under the age of 65, were without health insurance in 2008.<\/p>\n Some opponents to a government response to this market failure accuse the administration of being socialist.\u00a0 This reaction really confuses me given that we seem to accept that certain public goods are so essential to our national well-being that the government involvement makes sense: public schools, national highways, police and fire fighters, libraries, to name just a few.\u00a0 Are we then already a socialist country?<\/p>\n