Why the Right to Health Care is Not a Useful Concept for Policy Debates

Abstract

In recent years, one of the crucial concepts often invoked in policy debates about the provision of health care is the concept of the right to health care. Some have argued that health care is a privilege and not a right. Others, probably the more prevalent group, insist that there is a right to health care and that it has significant implications for the ways in which health care is provided and for the level of governmental funding of health care for the indigent. Regardless of the position being advocated, there are few serious discussions of the organization and financing of health care that fail to invoke, either explicitly or implicitly, the right to health care.