Guaranteeing Health Rights and Universal Health Coverage

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Description

Each year in low- and middle-income countries thousands of people are detained in hospitals for non-payment of medical bills, despite the fact that such detention is a violation of national and international law. Hospital detention for nonpayment of bills disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people, including post-partum women.

In the US, medical debt manifests itself in other ways, including bankruptcy, litigation to garnish wages, and foregone care. In both contexts, these scandals are the result of failures of financing, priority-setting, and legal oversight.

Without addressing these systemic issues, a “human right to health care” will remain a hollow slogan, as will political promises to achieve universal health coverage.

This event will feature Robert Yates of Chatham House, which has conducted an in-depth investigation of the global phenomenon of hospital detentions. Additional panelists will address manifestations of predatory lending and surprise medical fees in the United States, the ethical imperatives of financing and priority setting for UHC in general, and the implications for thinking about health care as a human right.

Agenda

9:00 – 9:05am, Welcome and Introduction

• Alicia Ely Yamin, Senior Fellow in Global Health and Rights, The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School

9:05 – 9:45am, Keynote Address

• Robert Yates, Director, Global Health Programme and Executive Director, Centre for Universal Health, Chatham House

9:45 – 10:45am, Debt in the American Health Care System

10:45 – 11:00am, Closing Reflections

• Alicia Ely Yamin, Senior Fellow in Global Health and Rights, The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School

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Slide Presentations

• Wendi C. Thomas, “Debt in the American Health Care System”
• Jay Hancock, “Large, Prestigious Teaching Hospitals Harming Patients Financially”
• Robert Yates, “Hospital Detentions For Non-Payment of Fees A Denial of Rights and Dignity”

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Part of the Global Health and Rights Project (GHRP), a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (GHELI) at Harvard University, with support from the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.