Health Care: Human Right or Profit Center?
by Groff Schroeder
In 1948, the Charter Members of the United Nations adopted
the legally binding United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
not legally binding, it initiated a series of treaties defining an
international standard for human rights. Article 25 addresses medical
care specifically. |
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood
in circumstances beyond his control." [1]
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In 1976, Article 12 of the International Covenant
on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights extended the concept of
medical care as a human right to include mental health care and,
"The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service
and medical attention in the event of sickness." [2] The covenant's
comment on implementation states, "Health is a fundamental human
right indispensable for the exercise of other human rights." [3]
The United States is a signatory of this covenant, and until just
recently, was the world's undisputed champion of human and civil
rights.
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Virtually every developed nation successfully and
economically provides this human right with not-for-profit "single
payer" systems, in which the government pays the People's medical
bills with tax revenues. Paralleling the "third world" medical care's
nonexistent, inconsistent or unequal access due to lack of personnel
and technology, America's schizophrenic not-for-profit (Medicare)
and for-profit (insurance based) paradigm generates unequal access
and substandard quality. Despite record health care expenditures,
American morbidity and mortality statistics are among the poorest
in the world. |
Medical care is a basic human need and "Do no harm"
is a founding medical ethic. Minimizing access to medical treatments
clearly harms patients, especially in the context of profit. Another
key medical ethic is informed consent. Americans are rarely informed
of, or consent to, the profit stemming from the pain and suffering
experienced due to treated and or untreated illness or injury. Furthermore,
growing health insurance premiums lead to growing numbers of uninsured
workers [4] and children, [5] ; medical bills, whether uninsured or
insured, are America's leading cause of bankruptcy. [6] |
Enterprises profiting from health care hold significant
conflicts of interest. Insurers frequently reject applicants likely
to need medical care, and deaths of insured clients benefit insurers,
who rarely participate personally in the sometimes messy process.
It appears the best way to profit from health care is to deny it.
Since the denial of medical care maximizes profits, for-profit health
care systems promote, if not constitute, a market in human suffering.
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In addition to significant expenses stemming from profit
itself, for-profit medicine generates competition, duplication of
services and administrative and marketing costs. Even brilliant advertising
rarely induces illness, injury, or the rejection of insurer reimbursement
guidelines. |
America's for-profit medical system fails to provide
quality medical care for all and prioritizes corporate profits over
basic human needs. This violates medical ethics, the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Social, Economic and
Cultural Rights and other international treaties designed to define
and ensure basic human rights. |
Extending Medicare coverage to all, boosting caregiver
reimbursement rates and retraining health insurance workers as health
care providers could solve these problems, restore our human rights
and end America's for-profit medical nightmare. |
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REFERENCES
[1] United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, December 10, 1948, http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm
, accessed November 12, 2002.
[2] United Nations, International Covenant on Social,
Economic and Cultural Rights, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm
, accessed November 12, 2002.
[3] United Nations, International Covenant on Social,
Economic and Cultural Rights, The right to the highest attainable
standard of health : . 11/08/2000. E/C.12/2000/4, CESCR General
comment 14, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/E.C.12.2000.4,+CESCR+General+comment+14.En?OpenDocument
, accessed November 12, 2002.
[4] American College of Physicians-American Society
of Internal Medicine, Achieving Affordable Health Insurance Coverage
for All within Severn Years: A Proposal From America's Internists,
April 9, 2002, http://www.acponline.org/uninsured/afford_7years.pdf
, accessed November 19, 2002.
[5] Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Covering Kids,
http://www.neahin.org/resources/docs/coveringkids_factsheet.pdf
, accessed November 19, 2002.
[6] Wordsworth, Araminta, US Study: Medical Bills
Main Culprit In Bankruptcies, National Post (Canada), http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042700-03.htm,
accessed November 19, 2002.
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This column is a condensation of an article that originally
appeared at www.undercovermedicine.com in 2003. |
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