Healthcare Is a Human Right
Launched in 2012, this is a statewide grassroots campaign that strives for universal healthcare in Maryland, United States (US). Organisers - United Workers, Healthcare-NOW! Maryland, and Physicians for a National Health Program-Maryland - are working to achieve this goal through building a people's movement that unites communities across Maryland, grounded in a human rights vision that is guided by 5 principles.
- Universality: "Human rights must be afforded to everyone, without exception."
- Equity: "Fair and equal access where everybody can afford the same high quality care."
- Accountability: "There must be means of holding the government accountable for failing to meet human rights standards."
- Transparency: "People must be able to know how public institutions needed to protect quality access to healthcare are managed and run."
- Participation: "Government must engage people and support their participation in decisions about how their health care system is shaped and supported."
This grassroots campaign revolves around the creation of self-run organising committees in each county in Maryland (8 committees exist, as of this writing). Each committee meets at least once a month and engages in a combination of self-education and outreach. Throughout the state, leaders of the campaign are holding public healthcare speakouts, surveying their communities, connecting with faith groups, collecting testimonies, and educating themselves on how to organise themselves and empower their communities.
For example, on Martin Luther King [MLK], Jr. Day, January 20 2014, the United Workers, Healthcare Now!, and Baltimore members of Healthcare is a Human Right – Maryland participated in Baltimore's 2014 MLK Day Parade. They carried a banner that read: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and the most inhumane." The quote is from MLK, spoken on March 25 1966 at the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. To cite another example, on October 26 2013, residents from across the state of Maryland marched for the human right to healthcare. A healthcare justice play took place just after a rally that kicked off the march near Baltimore's Patterson Park. Click here to listen to an audio clip of speeches, interviews, and sound from the event. Featured are: Sergio Espana, the statewide organiser for Healthcare is a Human Right-Maryland, two speakers from the healthcare rally before the march, the beats of the Baltimore Christian Warriors Marching Band, and some of the participants at the march. One 32-year-old member of the Howard Chapter said: "I am tired of other people speaking for me and I want my voice to be heard directly. Too often important policy decisions are decided behind closed doors without any involved of the people that have the most to lose and it's time that we change that dynamic. We can't look the other way when are neighbors are dying needlessly. The time to be a participant in society is now. And that is why I am marching!").
For more information, please see:
Health, Rights
Many members of the Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign have gone into bankruptcy or lost their homes because of medical debt. Others have had to forgo necessary treatment for illnesses such as cancer because of cost or a lack of health insurance. In Maryland alone, 400,000 residents will remain uninsured even after the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented.
United Workers, Healthcare-NOW! Maryland, and Physicians for a National Health Program-Maryland
United Workers website and Healthcare Is a Human Right website, both accessed on January 22 2014.