Access to medical care a basic human right
Guest column
The Missoulian
Friday, September 11, 2009
The commercial aspects of restructuring the health care industry are receiving much attention. Those of us who have been involved in the actual delivery of medical care believe there is a principle underlying the entire enterprise. Understanding this principle provides perspective that helps to evaluate the business details in reform plans as they emerge in coming weeks.
We believe that the United States needs to join the vast majority of the developed world and acknowledge the principle that medical care is a basic human right.
Nations recognizing this truth include Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and Taiwan. The United States is unique among major industrialized nations in not recognizing health care as a basic right for all its citizens.
Here’s the choice: If you consider health care a market-driven commodity, you will be content to make modest changes around the edges of our present profit-driven system. If you consider health care to be a business, you will tolerate the perverse incentives that increase business volume and you will be content to continue our current method of rationing on the basis of purchasing power.
However, if you understand medical practice to be a profession responding to a basic human need, and hospital services to be a critical element of health care, you will insist on genuine, far-reaching reform with a goal of achieving universal access.
While we understand that there may be many ways to achieve meaningful reform, we endorse a strong public health insurance option as the centerpiece of an effective strategy that can provide for the general welfare and at the same time retain the freedom of choice that citizens desire.
We know that our country will be more productive, our businesses stronger and our futures brighter if all of us have access to care.
This guest column was signed by Drs. Randale Sechrest, Herbert Swick, Stephen Speckart, Megan Sarnecki, George Risi, Liz Rantz, Roger Munro, William Nichols, Jan B. Newman, Judy Olson, Byron Olson, Al Gabster, Patrick Davis, N. Nelle Cotton, Henry W. Busey, John Brown, Hal Braun, Ned Vasquez, Alison Fortney-Gorman, David Gorman and by Elizabeth Oleson and Lee Ann Bradley, PharmD.