Health is a human right

Was it Nietzsche who said such similar things in one of his books? We are born as indentured servants to the state. The state let's us live as long as we continue to pay our debt which is called euphemistically "tax." The implicit agreement between the baby and the state is that the state promises to protect and to create pleasant environment for the baby to live a healthy and happy life. It's no surprise that we keep our side of the agreement and pay our taxes but the state never completely keeps his promises. Under these circumstances it would be useless to talk about human rights.

This gets complicated in the details. One good example is colorectal cancer testing. Recently in the US testing has been recommended for people ages 45-50 even though detectable colorectal cancer in people under the age of 55 is extremely rare and happens only in an extremely small fraction of the population. Based on cost of tests and expected results this regimen will cost society over $6 million per cancer found and current treatment regimens are not expected to save most of those people. Where are the lines drawn? Should we spend millions per case on people with colorectal cancer when we don't even have a fully reliable treatment regimen? What about other rare diseases? This idea that health is a human right implies heavy handed decisions about who gets what care. Pretending that there is plenty of money for all potentially needed care is ridiculous. This raises extremely awkward issues regarding the balance between preventive care and treatments and should force us to reevaluate how we treat elderly sick people.

On what basis is health care a human right?

I would claim that rights either provide some protection to the ruling class (the right to life means not executing unpopular leaders) or are derived from other rights.

So in this case, we could claim the right to life provides the basis for the right to health care.

Note the right to life is not absolute, e.g. capital punishment and military drafts (being forced into life-threatening situations at gunpoint.)

But googling "on what basis is health care a human right?" yields nothing convincing on the pro side, i.e. they all just assume health care is a human right.

>HEALTH is a human right. When people are not able to access the healthcare they need, especially if this is for reasons of cost, their human rights are denied.

Continuing...

>Universal health coverage is built on principles of equity and fairness, with health services allocated according to people’s needs and the health system financed according to people’s ability to pay.

That statement has a familiar ring.

Here's an anti-right argument -

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1126951/

>To propose that health care be considered a human right is not only wrong headed, it is unhelpful. Mature debate on the rationing and sharing of limited resources can hardly take place when citizens start from the premise that health care is their right, like a fair trial or the right to vote.

I would test the rights argument with a few questions --

1) Would the right to health care justify certain impositions on the population, a la jury duty? Would governments have the right to draft people to work in medicine?

2) If we could keep someone alive forever at the cost of $1 bil/day, would we be required to do so?

3) Would the right to health care provide governments the justification to override market mechanisms?

Or said another way -

4) Would governments have to repeal anti-competitive laws that limit the supply of health care?

I couldn’t disagree more. Health care is great and I want everyone to have it but how can it be considered a right. Is food a right? Is shelter a right?

I support socialised healthcare but a right is very different to a reasonable service for a society to provide to those in need.