Is health care a right or a privilege in the United States? Spoiler alert: It’s both

Joint Event on 2^nd International Conference on Medical and Health Science & 8^th Annual Congress and Medicare Expo on Primary Healthcare

July 26-27, 2019 Melbourne, Australia

Carol Apt

South Carolina State University, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Health Edu Res Dev

Abstract :

A right is something that is guaranteed and protected by a higher authority, such as a government, whereas a privilege is a special advantage or benefit granted to a person, a group, or to a category of people. A privilege, therefore, is granted to some and denied to others. The right to health care, or as some would say, the right to health, is a basic human right, as codified by international human rights law by the World Health Organization (1946), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the World Conference on Human Rights (1993). Experts in the field of health care has to think whether it is a right or a privilege, from the perspective of what the state owes or provides to individual citizens. In the United States, most Americans access health care through their employers; for those people health care is a right. However, since 2005 most new jobs added to the economy have been classified as part-time, temporary, or seasonal, which means they donâ??t provide access to health care for employees. While most Americans claim to be in favor of universal health care, the United States doesnâ??t have it; 44 million Americans have no health insurance, and 38 million Americans are underinsured.

Biography :

E-mail: capt@scsu.edu