Current Reviews Clinical Health Informatics

A right is something that is guaranteed and protected by a higher authority, such as a government, whereas a privilege is a special advantage or benefit granted to a person, a group, or to a category of people. A privilege, therefore, is granted to some and denied to others. The right to health care, or as some would say, the right to health, is a basic human right, as codified by international human rights law by the World Health Organization (1946), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the World Conference on Human Rights (1993). Experts in the field of health care has to think whether it is a right or a privilege, from the perspective of what the state owes or provides to individual citizens. In the United States, most Americans access health care through their employers; for those people health care is a right. However, since 2005 most new jobs added to the economy have been classified as part-time, temporary, or seasonal, which means they don???t provide access to health care for employees. While most Americans claim to be in favor of universal health care, the United States doesn???t have it; 44 million Americans have no health insurance, and 38 million Americans are underinsured