Health Care Policies
Helpm31990
9781284151619_SLID_CH06.ppt
Chapter 6
Individual Rights in Health Care and Public Health
Chapter Overview
- Describes the meaning and importance of the
“no-duty-to-treat” principle - Explains generally how the U.S. approach to health rights differs from that of other high-income countries
- Describes the types and limitations of individual legal rights associated with health care
- Describes the balancing approach taken when weighing individual rights against the public’s health
Background
- “No-duty-to-treat” principle
- Individuals have no legal right to health care services or to public health insurance
- No general legal duty to provide care for health care providers
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Individual Rights and Health Care:
A Global Perspective
- United States is one of the only high-income nations that does not guarantee health care as a fundamental right.
- Some two-thirds of constitutions worldwide address health or health care.
- Including language respecting health rights in a constitution does not guarantee that the right will be recognized or enforced.
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Individual Rights and the
Healthcare System
(1 of 3)
- Healthcare rights categorized in three ways:
Rights related to receiving services explicitly provided under health care, health financing, or health insurance laws
- For example, rights under EMTALA, Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
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Individual Rights and the
Healthcare System
(2 of 3)
2. Rights concerning freedom of choice and freedom from government interference when making health care decisions
- One of the most important healthcare rights is the right of individual patients to make informed decisions about the scope and course of their own care. This includes the right to refuse treatment.
Individual Rights and the
Healthcare System
(3 of 3)
3. The right to be free from unlawful discrimination when accessing or receiving health care
- Discrimination in health care can occur on the basis of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, age, and gender.
Individual Rights in a
Public Health Context
(1 of 3)
- One simple way to think about individual rights in a public health context is to use a balancing approach—what might the appropriate legal trade-offs be between private rights and public health and welfare?
Individual Rights in a
Public Health Context
(2 of 3)
- Police powers
- Represent government authority to require individual conformance with established standards of conduct
- Standards are designed to promote and protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare, and to permit government control of personal, corporate, and other private interests.
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Individual Rights in a
Public Health Context
(3 of 3)
- Prevailing view is that the Constitution empowers government to act in the name of public health but does not require it to do so.
- This interpretation refers to what is known as the “negative constitution”—the idea that the Constitution does not require government to provide any services, public health or otherwise.
- This approach to constitutional law derives from the fact that the Constitution is phrased mainly in negative terms.
