Normalizing an American Right to Health

The book argues that a U.S. right to health is not out of reach and that the law has already laid the groundwork for it. It proposes expanding the right through ordinary policies that are widely used in other domains, such as impact assessments and state-sponsored reinsurance, and normalizing American health rights discourse.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 08 June 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

This book challenges the notion that a universal right to health in the United States is unattainable, presenting evidence that the necessary changes are not extraordinary but rather familiar and already established in existing statutes and case law. By applying well-accepted theories of rights, this descriptive foundation has yet to be fully recognized or utilized for rights-building. The book then shifts its focus from identifying where a right to health already exists in the legal corpus to proposing practical and meaningful ways to expand the right through ordinary policies commonly employed in other domains, such as impact assessments and state-sponsored reinsurance. By mainstreaming the discourse on health rights in American policy debates, this book equips health advocates with the tools they need to engage in the critical political battles surrounding health issues. In the context of prevailing neoliberal and neo-Lochnerian ideologies that have led us to a dead-end, this book offers a alternative ethic centered on embodied justice, prioritizing the human experience and our capacity for suffering and flourishing.

Weight: 554g
Dimension: 240 x 165 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780197650592