Immigrants and Healthcare A rights-based utilitarian approach

Thousands of immigrants are currently residing in Sweden on illegal grounds. These people, along with asylum seekers, have very restricted access to state subsidized healthcare. The Swedish government has presented no clear motivation for this policy. The purpose of our study is to argue that all immigrants should get access to complete state subsidized healthcare. We will, as a basis for our argumentation, and as an independent purpose, present a theory that reconciles utilitarianism with a rights-based perspective, and argue for a postulation of a right to healthcare. Our method is normative analysis which we apply in such a way that no extensive empirical material is needed. The result of this study indicates that it is possible, from utilitarian premises, to postulate a right to healthcare and to argue that it in fact would maximize aggregate utility to grant all immigrants residing in Sweden equal access to healthcare