Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example
Dr. Garcia’s Standpoint
Conceptualizing health as a human right imposes a legal obligation on states to facilitate access to health care that is of appropriate quality and affordable, and in a timely and acceptable way. This scenario demonstrates that while the right to health care exists, it does not come with a caveat that allows one to enjoy this right while putting another individual (read the taxpayer) into financial distress. Following the sentiments of the two doctors interviewed (Dr. Jonathan Miller and Dr. Juan Garcia) in the right to healthcare transcript, I take Option B out of the four resulting options. Essentially, this means that in this debate, I concur with Dr. Garcia, who contents that we already have a minimum standard that puts the US healthcare system among the best in the world if one considers aspects of care like sanitation and immunizations, both of which are known to save millions of lives.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
Why I Agree with Dr. Garcia’s Standpoint
In my opinion, the US healthcare system lives up to the billing of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25 that recognizes it is the right of every individual to enjoy a standard of living sufficient for both health and wellbeing, thus explicitly mentioning medical care. Using the word right in the context of health care debates conjures the concept of right in a powerful and emotional yet seemingly simple manner, simultaneously implying that there can be no counterargument against the said assertion. Subsequently, a critical thinker acknowledges and appreciates that the provision of medical and healthcare generally relies on individuals and therefore should not be expected to be free. At the very best, it means that medical care has to compete with other necessary rights like property rights or the right to education. Put differently, the question of fairness is bound to emerge with questions like whether people who promiscuously engage in sex should have the right to taxpayers’ resources as they seek treatment on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) treatment. Along the same vein, one wonders whether smokers should have free access to the taxpayers’ money as they seek lung cancer treatment. How fair is it for an individual to demand that others pay the consequences of their actions the moment they have poor health lifestyle choices?(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
Dr. Garcia’s views capture that the US government ensures Americans access portable water, sanitation, food, housing, and other health-based information. Most importantly, the US government supports the right to health by allocating the maximum available resources (WHO, 2018)(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example). In many instances, the right to health and healthcare has been domesticated into local or state domestic law or enshrined in their respective constitutions. In a nutshell, I appreciate that a rights-based approach to health demands the implementation of health policies and programs that prioritize the needs of those far behind in terms of health equity. Given these health policies and programs, every American has h right to health which has both freedoms and entitlements. Freedoms include but are not limited to the right to control one’s health and body and be free from interference through receiving non-consensual medical treatment or experimentation. Entitlements embrace the right to a system that accords every person an equal opportunity to enjoy the highest levels of health attainable. According to Noonan et al. (2016), particular focus should be extended to the disadvantaged and marginalized populations who are excluded from enjoying good health in the societies where they live. A critical thinker is aware that four ethical theories are justice theory, profit maximization, rights theory, and utilitarianism. The social justice theory is the best one that would best expound on Option B because it propagates a belief that all people should have equal wealth, health, wellbeing, justice, privileges, and opportunity the individual’s political, economic, or other circumstances notwithstanding (Habibzadeh et al., 2021).(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
Most Ethical Scenario of the Four Responses
Having defended Dr. Garcia’s Option B response that holds that we already have a minimum standard that comparatively ranks among the best in the world, one could also concur with Dr. Miller’s Option A, which avers that all we need is to provide an apparent minimum of health healthcare, with Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 being the safest route to take us there.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example) To determine the most ethical scenario alternatively, one can root for Option C, which envisages a scenario where every person deserves an essential minimum of healthcare with the sanctity of human life not varying based on an individual’s tax bracket. The fourth and last of the available options (Option D) calls people to take a step back and embrace the need for a robust social justice theory that supports primary healthcare for all. Option D is rated as the most ethical of the four scenarios because it calls for reflection before people decide on which of the social justice theory like utilitarian, liberal or communitarian, amongst others, would have the best implications for all stakeholders.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
In conclusion, this paper has established that healthcare can mean many different things to different people. Healthcare providers need to be aware that providing healthcare rights may sometimes require infringement upon the rights of others, moral judgment, and complex allocation of the available resources. Instead of striving to emerge at the top on arguments of what constitutes health care rights, every stakeholder in healthcare should endeavor to see how best the resources available are allocated to provide the said rights.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
References
Habibzadeh, H., Jasemi, M., & Hosseinzadegan, F. (2021). Social justice in health system; a neglected component of academic nursing education: a qualitative study. BMC nursing, 20(1), 1-9.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
Kruk, M. E., Gage, A. D., Arsenault, C., Jordan, K., Leslie, H. H., Roder-DeWan, S., … & Pate, M. (2018). High-quality health systems in the Sustainable Development Goals era: time for a revolution. The Lancet global health, 6(11), e1196-e1252.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
Noonan, A. S., Velasco-Mondragon, H. E., & Wagner, F. A. (2016). Improving the health of African Americans in the USA: an overdue opportunity for social justice. Public health reviews, 37(1), 1-20.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)
World Health Organization. (2018). Delivering Quality Health Services: A Global Imperative. OECD Publishing.(Right to Healthcare-A Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)