A legal right to health care: What can the United States learn from foreign models of health rights jurisprudence?

By Puneet K. Sandhu
Comment, California Law Review
August, 2007

Introduction

With the employer-provided health care system eroding and prospects for a national solution dim, advocates of expanded access to health care are once again invoking the idea of a right to health care. For example, on November 8, 2005, 69% of Seattle voters approved a symbolic ballot measure that stated simply, “Every person in the United States should have the right to health care of equal high quality” and that Congress should “immediately implement” legislation to vindicate this right. In March 2006, members of Tennessee’s faith community engaged in three days of fasting and prayer to advocate for the poor’s right to health care. In New York, one commentator has called for a state constitutional amendment to “guarantee basic health care as a fundamental right to every resident.” In the summer of 2006, advocates for the poor in Utah began circulating a petition to amend the state constitution to ensure medically necessary care for all citizens. Most prominently, Massachusetts held a constitutional convention in July 2006 to consider an initiative amendment that would create a right to health care for all residents.

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Copyright (c) 2007 California Law Review, Inc.; Puneet K. Sandhu