Health Is a Basic Human Right—It’s Time Our Laws, Systems, and Values Reflected That

US President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will cut funding for healthcare by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. The fallout is expected to be grim, with over 17 million people projected to lose health coverage, hospital closures, and around 5 million denied Medicaid because of new work requirements. These drastic cuts were made with relative ease because the US—unlike other industrialized countries—does not recognize healthcare as a human right. It is time to change that.

Health is not a commodity to be bought, traded, or reserved for the privileged. It is a fundamental human right. That idea is not radical. It is affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, which states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.” Yet here we are in 2025, still debating whether people deserve access to basic care.

The consequences of ignoring this right are all around us. Life expectancy in the US has declined, not because we lack the technology or knowledge to save lives, but because we have failed to build systems rooted in equity. We spend more per capita on healthcare than any other nation, yet preventable deaths continue to rise. These are not policy failures—they are moral ones.

In 2024, over 38 million Americans—including children and the elderly—were uninsured. That number is rising as Medicaid coverage shrinks and costs climb. Meanwhile, more than 1 in 4 Americans skipped or delayed medical care last year due to cost. That only stands to get worse. According to the Center for American Progress, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will result in at least 10.5 million people being tossed from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

We can keep patching up the wounded—or we can finally build a society where fewer people get hurt in the first place.

Maternal mortality has soared in recent years, with African-American women dying at nearly three times the rate of white women. Rural hospitals are closing. Mental health needs are surging. The opioid crisis—now driven by fentanyl—continues to devastate communities, with over 82,000 overdose deaths reported in 2024 alone. These are not just data points—they are lives cut short, families shattered, communities weakened.

We do not need more evidence to prove that the system is broken. What we need is the courage to reimagine it, and the will to build a broad coalition of citizens capable of pressuring government to act.

Health as a basic human right means more than emergency care or sporadic access to clinics. It means universal access to preventive care, affordable medications, mental health services, clean air and water, safe housing, and nutritious food. It means recognizing that health does not start in the doctor’s office—it begins in our homes, schools, workplaces, and streets.

It also means rejecting the false choice between individual responsibility and collective investment. We are all responsible for our health… but that responsibility must be matched with support. You can’t choose to eat healthy if your neighborhood doesn’t have a grocery store. You can’t manage diabetes if insulin is unaffordable. You can’t get therapy if mental health services are unavailable or stigmatized. Personal responsibility without social infrastructure is just another form of blame.

The pandemic revealed the high cost of failing to treat health as a public good. Communities of color bore the brunt of Covid-19 deaths. Essential workers were praised but not protected. Hospitals were overrun while billion-dollar companies profited. And still, the lesson seems unlearned. We return to business as usual at our peril.

Establishing healthcare as a human right will not be an easy fight, but we have the beginnings already. The Declaration of Independence guarantees Americans an unalienable right to life. This can and has been construed as including the right to healthcare. As of December 2024, “62% of US adults, the highest percentage in more than a decade, say it is the federal government’s responsibility to ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage,” according to Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare survey. Even among Republicans, who have historically opposed government-sponsored healthcare, the tide is changing. The same survey noted that “32% of Republicans favor government-supported healthcare. This is up from 22% in 2020.” For Democrats that number is at an historic high, with a 90% support rate—"the highest Gallup has measured for the group to date.”

The choice before us is clear. We can continue to ration care by wealth, geography, and race—or we can build a system grounded in fairness, prevention, and possibility. We can keep patching up the wounded—or we can finally build a society where fewer people get hurt in the first place.

Health is a basic human right. Until we treat it as such, we will fall short of our values—and our potential as a nation.

Now is the time to make that right real for everyone.