Pursuing A New Vision For Health Care: A Human Rights Assessment of the Presidential Candidates ’ Proposals “The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being..." Preamble to the Constitution

The purpose of a health care system is to preserve and improve health. While most people would agree with this simple premise, health care in the United States does not adequately achieve this purpose. Although many doctors, community clinics and public hospitals serve our health, a significant segment of the health care industry is designed to maximize profit rather than care. Indeed, private insurers and providers have a legal obligation to their shareholders and investors to make a profit. In this model, health care is a commodity. This has grave consequences for our health: studies have shown that maximizing profit generally correlates with minimizing care, higher rates of death, unnecessary suffering, and loss of health (see box). The commodity-based approach to health care is fundamentally flawed. It restricts access to health care to those who can afford to buy it and assumes that prices will be reasonable because supply and demand are linked. With most products, consumers limit their demand based on price. But in the case of health care, demand is not price sensitive – when you are sick you don’t have a choice. Supply, on the other hand, is most profitable if care is either charged at expensive rates, in the case of providers, or avoided altogether, in the case of private insurers. Insurance companies operate under incentives to reduce care and do not need to deliver a quality product or service in order to make money