Main description:

Is health care a commodity to be bought and sold? Today, as health costs spiral upward, this question is more pressing than ever. In the developing world, the right to health rarely exists. In the developed world, progress towards this right is uneven; universal health care advances in some nations and retreats in others. Everywhere, however, the right to health remains a powerful rallying cry.As a means of informing today s debates, this book explores the history of the right to health, from antiquity to the present day. It describes the evolution of human rights, welfare policy, and universal health care and most notably it explores the political movements and economic transformations that provoked and nourished efforts to advance the human right to health. The book is essential reading for scholars and students of human rights and public health, for health care providers, and for any citizen with a stake in the ideal, and realization, of the right to health."