Why “Health Insurance Reform” Fails to Meet Human Rights Principles

Our Human Right to Health Program Director, Anja Rudiger, is the author of this insightful post on the OpenForum: a blog supported by the community of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal.

Anja Rudiger | July 30, 2009

Now that the President has officially designated the ongoing health care reform efforts as “health insurance reform,” we can stop the charade that this debate was ever about “care.” Or about health, for that matter. Oddly enough, the obsession with “coverage” – a potential mechanism to facilitate access to care – has not led to a serious consideration of the private insurance industry’s raison d’être, at least not beyond the community of single payer advocates whose voices are drowned in the constant drumbeat about a supposedly American – read: “market” – solution.

How are the current proposals for health insurance reform treating an industry that siphons off roughly $10 billion in annual profits? We now have two health reform bills reported out of congressional committees (”America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” in the House and the “Affordable Health Choices Act” in the Senate – using terminology pushed by Democratic pollsters, no doubt). Neither of them meets key human rights standards, and both cast private insurance corporations in the role of gatekeepers that control people’s access to care. At the same time, opposition is mounting against all and any reform measures.  Read more here.

The New Yorker on the Human Right to Health

There is a good piece by Hendrik Hertzberg in this week’s New Yorker about how the structure of America’s legislative institutions makes truly effective health care reform near impossible to achieve.  He also includes a short discussion of the human right to health care:

“Pretty much everybody who believes that health care should be a human right, not a commercial commodity, and who makes a serious study of the abstract substance of the matter, concludes that the best solution would be (to borrow Obama’s words at the press conference) “what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered.” But, by the same token, pretty much everybody who believes the same thing, and who makes a serious study of the concrete politics of the matter, concludes that a change so sudden and so wrenching—and so threatening to so many powerful interests—is beyond the capacities of our ramshackle political mechanisms.”

While we at NESRI agree with the substance of Hertzberg’s analysis, we think that his overall tone is unnecessarily defeatist.

Once you study the history of human rights movements, similar concerns about political feasibility and powerful vested interests can be found.   What you also find is that the only way that meaningful change can be brought about is through grassroots movements led by the people most affected in collaboration with those seeking to realize human rights for all.  The history of such movements shows that asserting our human rights can lead to dramatic change. Relying on top-down action from the impotent legislative institutions Hertzberg is so rightly pessimistic about is neither the only nor even the best way to advance the cause of human rights.  Change may not be quick (we may not get to single-payer in one step) but the power of a mass movement should never be underestimated.

AGFE Mission Reveals Disturbing Facts

This week, our Human Right to Housing team is in New Orleans to participate in a fact-finding mission, led by the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE), an advisory body to the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, which addresses unlawful forced evictions. The goal of the mission is to investigate housing rights violations in the city, both pre- and post-Katrina. Tiffany Gardner, our Human Right to Housing Director, and Sam Jackson, founder of NESRI partner Mayday New Orleans, together with other local experts, are assisting the Advisory Group and observing their investigation.

The New Orleans residents who met with the Advisory Group conveyed a clear, but fairly disturbing message. Residents, especially in low-income communities, were not only forced to leave their homes by local authorities, but are repeatedly denied their right to participation in any redevelopment plans. These actions on the part of local authorities constitute a blatant violation of residents’ human right to housing, as well as a breach of the principle of participation in the UN guidelines on internal displacement. The New Orleans urban redevelopment model fails to take into account the views and accommodate the basic interests (and rights) of a substantial part of its residents, thereby depriving them of any viable opportunities to manage their return home. As a result, the communities that are so crucial to the spirit of New Orleans have been torn apart.

Residents’ testimonies before the Advisory Group put the situation in words that are much more telling. You can find the testimonies in a vlog from the mission, which we put together with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and Witness hosted (even featured as an editor’s pick) on their Hub.

More updates and stories from the fact-finding mission will be posted on the blog over the next few days. But while we are still in New Orleans, you can check out some background information on the AGFE mission on the NESRI news page, or get more details from the extensive press coverage the mission received.

Bill Maher: New Rule – Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

The Huffington Post, July 23, 2009

by Bill Maher

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn’t do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn’t used to define us. But now it’s becoming all that we are.Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a “war profiteer” was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­– like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason –­ who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you’re going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that’s where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That’s why America has the world;s largest prison population ­– because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite’s day. I thought, “Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.”

But maybe they aren’t. Because unlike in Cronkite’s day, today’s news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That’s why it wasn’t surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter’s time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.

And finally, there’s health care. It wasn’t that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that’s good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they’re run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They’re not hospitals anymore; they’re Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America’s largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it’s not a right, it’s a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they’re always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like “recision,” where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you’ve been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what’s in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care “socialized medicine,” I get to call private health care “soulless vampires making money off human pain.” The problem with President Obama’s health care plan isn’t socialism, it’s capitalism.

And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what’s wrong with firemen? Why don’t they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!

 Bill Maher is the host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

President accepts that only single payer can provide the universal coverage that would help realize the human right to health.

Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images

In yesterday’s press conference, President Obama was asked to what extent the Democrats’ health care reform proposal would expand coverage.  In reply, the President admitted that the proposal would not cover everyone and that the only way to do so would be with a single payer system!

Universal coverage is a key element of the human right to health and Obama’s comment demonstrates both his recognition that his own plan will not fulfill the requirements of that right and that single payer would do this much more effectively.  This further reinforces the disappointment and anger of campaigners that a combination of unfortunate political calculations and a lack of political will on the part of the Democrats has kept single payer off the table in the health care debate.

The President himself accepts that only single payer can take us closer to realizing the right to health care for all people in America – a right that he himself recognizes.  It’s a shame then that he has not used his power and popularity to push for true universality in American health care.

Below is the relevant excerpt from the transcript:

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. We were just talking in that question about — about reducing health care inflation, reducing costs. Can you explain how you’re going to expand coverage?

Is it fair to say — is this bill going to cover all 47 million Americans that are uninsured? Or is this going to be something — is it going to take a mandate? Or is this something that isn’t — your bill is probably not going to get it all the way there? And if it’s not going to get all the way there, can you say, how far is enough? You know, “OK, 20 million more, I can sign that; 10 million more, I can’t”?

OBAMA: I want to cover everybody. Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual because there’s always going to be somebody out there who thinks they’re indestructible and doesn’t want to get health care, doesn’t bother getting health care, and then, unfortunately, when they get hit by a bus, end up in the emergency room and the rest of us have to pay for it.

For more on this read our single payer report!