Read this new NESRI post on Amnesty International USA’s Human Rights Now blog – here are the first few paragraphs:

While protesters have been occupying House Speaker Pelosi’s office, demanding a health care system that serves Patients not Profit, the House of Representatives is preparing to vote on the market-based health care bill introduced last week by Speaker Pelosi. It is not expected that the House leadership will allow a lengthy floor discussion, but the most recent news reports suggest that the promised vote on Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) single payer amendment may be allowed. Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi has presented the leadership’s additions to the bill in a so-called Manager’s Amendment, stating that this would strengthen provisions for “excluding insurers who put profits over patients from an affordable marketplace that will serve tens of millions of Americans.”

Does that mean the protesters demands have been met? Is this health care bill bringing us closer to realizing our human right to health care? Let’s recall that according to international legal standards, the human right to health requires that “health facilities, goods and services must be affordable for all. Payment for health-care services… has to be based on the principle of equity.”

The House bill aims to achieve affordability by subsidizing the purchase of an insurance policy for those earning between 150% and 400% of the federal poverty level, provided they don’t have employer-based insurance. In practice, this means someone with an income at the upper end of this scale would pay $5300 a year in premiums and up to $2000 a year in cost-sharing, amounting to around 17% of their income. At the bottom end of the scale, health care costs would be around 6-7% of a person’s income – which is still higher than a general income tax increase proposed by single payer health insurance bills.  Many immigrants would get no support at all, and anyone unable to afford such an insurance plan would be subject to a penalty payment, since everyone will be mandated to purchase insurance.  

Is this affordable? Maybe for some, but probably not for others. Is it equitable? Giving lower-income people greater subsidies seems like a reasonable starting point, yet even if those subsidies were sufficient, and even if everyone who needed them was eligible, it is not clear that this money would actually buy access to health care, as opposed to access to coverage. Each person’s subsidy would go directly to an insurance company, which would continue to control an individual’s access to care, covering certain treatments but not others, allowing the visit to one doctor but not another, or denying claims altogether. Different groups of people would get different coverage and therefore different access to care, depending on their ability to pay. People would not get health care based solely on their health needs, but based on their income or wealth, age, and immigration status. …Read more here.

Read the full post: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/demand-dignity/dollars-and-cents-of-new-health-care-legislation/

Check out this new post on Amnesty International USA’s blog, Human Rights Now, cross-posted on The Huffington Post. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

“A dramatic disconnect between principles and policies has hampered current U.S. health care reform efforts. This became obvious when candidate Obama declared health care to be a right and then proceeded to treat it as a commodity when negotiating with insurance companies a requirement for individuals to buy a commercial health insurance product.

Similarly, early on in the debate the president championed the principle of universality by promising some form of health coverage – if not necessarily health care – for 46 million uninsured people, only to lower the policy goal to 30 million American citizens in his speech before Congress, excluding many immigrants and low-income people. Since then, further policy provisions that restrict access to health coverage for immigrants – documented and undocumented – and reduce affordability for lower-income people have appeared in the health care bill adopted by the Senate Finance Committee.”  Read more here.

Here are are a couple of good examples, both in the New York Times, of how the health care debate is finally beginning to inspire more thoughtful reflections and critiques – possibly informed by human rights advocacy – at the same time as dominant policy proposals continue clinging to the status quo. In particular, this opinion piece by Cohen explains some of the ideological obstacles to realizing the right to health care in the United States, yet disregards the growing grassroots movement for rights-based health care principles and their potential implementation through single payer policy proposals.

Here’s the crux of the argument: “Europeans don’t get why Americans don’t agree that universal health coverage is a fundamental contract to which the citizens of any developed society have a right. […] Fixing [the US health care system] requires the acknowledgment that, when it comes to health, we’re all in this together. Pooling the risk between everybody is the most efficient way to forge a healthier society. Europeans have no problem with this moral commitment. But Americans hear ‘pooled risk’ and think, ‘Hey, somebody’s freeloading on my hard work.’ […] [Europeans] see greater risk in unfettered individualism than in social solidarity. Americans, born in revolt against Europe and so ever defining themselves against the old Continent’s models, mythologize their rugged (always rugged) individualism as the bulwark against initiative-sapping entitlements. We’re not talking about health here. We’re talking about national narratives and mythologies — as well as money. These are things not much susceptible to logic. But in matters of life and death, mythology must cede to reality, profit to wellbeing.”

This is a welcome analysis of a key barrier faced by those struggling for the right to health care in the U.S. today. It highlights how the national ‘mythology’ of individualism can undermine the fight for vital services that can only be provided collectively. The article goes on to note how some measure of solidarity seems particularly pertinent and plausible when it comes to health – if Americans share nothing else, they surely can agree that unnecessary sickness and death are what everyone wants to avoid and no one deserves.

Yet Cohen is less clear on how mythology and money are intertwined to form a powerful hegemony that is, in fact, not at all representative of the public will, as documented in protests movements, opinion polls, daily letters to the editor, and even, yes, elections. We see more support for rights-based reforms, such as single payer national health insurance, in the public sphere than in the hallowed halls of Congress, where myth and money seem to go hand in hand to keep things the way they are. Our representatives have not yet recognized that, as Cohen says, “health care is a moral obligation rather than a financial opportunity”. Therefore, we should not indulge them by narrowing the discussion to their small-minded policy options. A “clear moral stand” must be based on firm human rights principles that do not allow excluding people from health care based on their ability to pay, their immigration status, or any other factor. This is the principle of solidarity we promote, and it must be the solidarity we practice.

Read the op-ed by Cohen here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05iht-edcohen.html?scp=1&sq=public%20imperative&st=cse

Read the op-ed by Kristof here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/08kristof.html?_r=1&em

By Cathy Albisa, Executive Director, NESRI

This October 5th, the United States government has teamed up with UN Habitat to celebrate
World Habitat Day, with the theme of ‘Planning our Urban Future.’ Both the President and the
Secretary of HUD have stated “America has always been strongest when we work in
partnership to build communities that are vibrant, durable and inclusive.” All parties involved
express great concern about the urban poor during this day, and recognize the obvious:
adequate housing is central to human wellbeing.

But during the day of celebration, more than a thousand people are likely to lose their home to
foreclosure in the United States, the majority of poor residents from New Orleans remain
displaced, public housing is threatened by more demolitions despite the growing homelessness
crisis, and most people shut out of the private market face inadequate and humiliating options.
Despite these stark realities, there is no indication that HUD will announce today that it will
stop bulldozing people’s homes in public housing around the country or that the White House
will declare a national housing emergency and ensure that the ongoing foreclosures cease until
a more rational solution can be found. On the contrary, on this day of celebration in
Washington D.C., we will continue to see more and more homes without people and people
without homes.

In July of 2009, UN Habitat sent an advisory group of experts to New Orleans on a fact finding
mission on forced evictions. The international group met people living in abandoned buildings,
saw piles of rubble where homes used to be in public housing complexes bulldozed by HUD,
talked to people with rental assistance who couldn’t find a place to live because no landlord
would take their vouchers, and visited those who literally ended up under the bridges and any
other place they could put down their meager belongings because they no longer had any
home at all.

On October 22‐November 8, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing is also
undertaking a mission in the United States indicating that housing rights are so imperiled the
situation requires international monitoring. This is the reality of habitats in the United States,
and one that is more fitting for a day of mourning and reflection than celebration.

Better yet, let’s consider holding off on the celebrations until people in the United State have a
guarantee of a secure and stable home, and instead make World Habitat Day a day of action
and a day of making resolute commitments to change the shameful state of housing in America
today. And when President Obama visits New Orleans later this month, we suggest he meet
with local resident groups, such as Mayday New Orleans, so he can truly work in partnership
and build communities that are vibrant, durable and inclusive.

In a new blog post on the Open Forum of Harvard’s Health and Human Rights Journal, NESRI’s Human Right to Health Program Director, Anja Rudiger, talks about her recent visit to Montana, where NESRI and the Montana Human  Rights Network conducted focus group discussions on the health needs and health experiences of rural Montanans.

Read Anja’s blog post here.

As if to justify the recent vitriolic castigation of insurance companies, this L.A. Times article chronicles how the insurance companies stand to reap huge windfalls from “health reform.” These anticipated windfalls would be achieved at a direct cost to those that insurers are supposed to insure. For example, a new move in the Senate Finance Committee would require insurers to cover only 65% of an insured’s costs in order to qualify for the Exchange, even though the current inadequate norm is over 80%. Such windfalls were articulated (here and here) by the NESRI/NHeLP Human Right to Health program as an eminently predictable outcome of any market-based health reform effort, but the corporate socialism catalogued below goes well beyond what is inherent in any such approach. In short, the insurance companies are getting their money’s worth for the millions and millions of dollars they are spending every week to influence this process. The only potential fly in their ointment, of course, would be a public plan offering better value than their plans (a low standard, that), so they are now fully engaged in trying to kill even that pale imitation of a functional single payer system. The more things change . . . .

Posted by Steve Hitov, National Health Law Program

Senator Edward Kennedy’s many inspiring messages include:  

“Let us at long last make the basic right to health care a reality for all.”

And at the Democratic National Convention last summer:

“This is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.”  

Lessons for policymakers will endure, and, as Robert Creamer argues in the Huffington Post, the most fitting tribute to Kennedy would be if we now stopped “debating the fundamental principle that all of us deserve the same quality health care – no matter how much we earn, or who our parents are, or where we live, or the color of our skin, or how old or sick we may be. That principle is accepted worldwide as a central element of what it means to live in a civilized society. It is a core tenant of what we understand to be universal human rights.”

Read Creamers’ powerful post here, and take action here to demand that the U.S. Senate treats health care as a human right, not a commodity.

Vermonters rally for human right to health care

With the national health care debate raging through the summer, two new online articles call attention to the need to reframe the fight for real health care reform in human rights terms.

In the August 20th article entitled  ”Reframing the Health Care Debate: Is it too late for human rights?”, Desiree Evans, of Facing South, suggests that our country’s elected officials lag behind widespread grassroots support for economic and social rights like health care.  Evans goes on to say “Human Rights groups like Amnesty International and NESRI say that the current health crisis presents an opportunity for bringing a human rights perspective to domestic health policy — to shift the debate from health care as a commodity to health care as a human right.”  

In the August 19th article “Taking on the Right over Healthcare Reform: Lessons from Vermont,”  Jonathan Kissam, of the Vermont Workers’ Center, suggests that an organizing campaign for health care reform that is rooted in a commitment to the human right to health care will enable health care advocates to build a large and engaged base.  He goes onto to suggest that “placing the voices of people most affected front and center” and ensuring the leadership of those “who have suffered under the current system” will be key to building a real movement for universal health care and a just society.

NESRI deeply mourns the loss of Marilyn Clement, a great human rights advocate. Marilyn was an inspiration to all of us, and she set a wonderful example of what it means to work for rights and justice for all. One of her many legacies is the emerging shift in discourse from health care as a commodity to health care as a right. Rights-based health policy changes will follow, eventually, and when that happens, we will remember Marilyn’s pioneering role.

Please visit Healthcare-NOW to read a statement about Marilyn’s life and work. Listen to Marilyn’s speech at a celebration held in her honor on June 7, 2009.

Amnesty International USA has launched an online action for a national, Medicare-like public health care plan for everyone:

“Real health care reform could help bring the U.S. government closer to fulfilling the human right to health care. Yet Congress continues to treat health care as a market commodity, rather than a public good. Congress must stop pandering to the insurance industry and instead provide a Medicare-like public plan that is accessible to everyone. “

AIUSA asks their members and other activists to email the Senate leadership. Amnesty calls on Congress “to provide a Medicare-like public plan that guarantees access for all, offers comprehensive benefits, and is publicly funded, without using private companies as middlemen.”

According to Amnesty International USA a “human rights assessment demonstrates that when private companies stand between us and our rights, too many people are unable to get the care they need. Publicly financed and administered health care is the strongest vehicle for creating a system that is truly universal, equitable and accountable.” 

You can also email your own representative. Take part in this action to tell your Congressperson that health care is a public good, not a commodity!