Anthropology · Discussion
Healthcare as a Human Right
A comparative reflection on rights, health, Colombia, the United States, and global health justice.
Course
ANTH 1115
Assignment
Discussion / Essay
Focus
Colombia · United States · Global
01. Why healthcare should be a human right.
Healthcare must be understood as a human right because it is foundational to all other rights and opportunities. Without basic health, it is difficult or impossible to work, study, care for family, or participate fully in society.
Sridhar Venkatapuram argues that every human being has a human right to the capability to be healthy, not simply access to scattered medical services. Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist at Harvard, adds that access to healthcare itself is a human right and that all societies together share responsibility for giving everyone equal access to care, regardless of cost. Using Colombia and the United States as our lens, we can see how their ideas play out in real health systems.
Colombia recognizes health as a constitutional right and structures its national system to guarantee access regardless of income. Even with ongoing challenges, this reflects a social commitment to ensuring that every person has the capability to be healthy.
The United States takes a very different approach, treating healthcare as a commodity tied to employment and wealth. This model allows cost to determine who receives care and whose needs are ignored. It contradicts Farmer’s argument that access to healthcare should never depend on the ability to pay and diverges from Venkatapuram’s view that societies must secure the conditions that allow all people to achieve genuine health capability.
Together, these examples show that when healthcare is treated as a right, societies create systems of responsibility and shared protection. When it is treated as a privilege, inequalities deepen and health outcomes become reflections of economic status. Recognizing healthcare as a human right is therefore not only morally necessary, but essential for social stability and human development.
Health is not optional. Without it, every other right becomes theoretical instead of real.
02. Comprehensive care: physical, dental, and mental health.
People should have access to all forms of healthcare, including physical, dental, and mental health. Focusing only on physical illness while ignoring dental and mental health is like caring only about a car’s engine while the seats and doors are missing. The car may run, but it is not safe and it does not truly serve its purpose.
In Colombia, the national benefits package legally includes physical, dental, and mental health services, even though real access can be uneven, especially in rural and conflict affected regions. In the United States, insurance structures frequently separate dental and mental health from standard medical coverage. This creates predictable harm, particularly for low income and marginalized communities.
Medical and anthropological research shows how deeply these domains are connected. Trauma and chronic stress can increase the risk of heart disease and other chronic illnesses. Untreated dental problems can lead to serious infections and hospitalizations. People living with chronic disease often face depression and anxiety, which can make it harder to manage their conditions.
If healthcare is truly a human right, then that right must be comprehensive. A system that excludes mental or dental health is not protecting people in a meaningful way. Comprehensive access to physical, dental, and mental healthcare is necessary to support real wellbeing.
Health does not come in separate boxes. One person, one life, one interconnected body and mind.
03. Universal healthcare, inequality, poverty, and funding.
Universal healthcare would significantly reduce inequality and poverty, especially in the United States, and it would strengthen global wellbeing. Colombia shows how a system that approaches universal coverage can reduce the risk that a family falls into extreme poverty due to illness. There are still serious gaps between urban and rural areas and between different regions, but the foundation of social protection is present.
In the United States, the absence of universal healthcare allows medical debt to become one of the leading causes of bankruptcy. Many people delay or avoid treatment because of cost, which worsens disease, lowers productivity, and harms families for generations. In that context, universal healthcare would not be a luxury. It would be one of the most direct tools for reducing poverty.
From a global perspective, the barrier is not a lack of money. The top one percent holds an enormous share of the world’s wealth. Moderate taxes on extreme wealth, capital gains, financial transactions, and multinational corporate profits could fund robust universal healthcare systems in many countries. The problem is not technical capacity, but political choice and distribution.
Universal healthcare also does not have to come at the expense of providers. Doctors, nurses, and other health workers can remain well paid and respected. Reducing administrative waste, guaranteeing stable reimbursement, and investing in training and workforce expansion can support high salaries and better working conditions. In fact, a rational universal system can make healthcare work more sustainable by cutting paperwork and focusing on patient care.
For all of these reasons, universal healthcare would clearly reduce inequality and poverty both within countries and globally. It would not solve every social problem, but it would remove one of the most powerful engines of avoidable suffering and economic insecurity.
The uncomfortable truth is not that universal healthcare is impossible. It is that the resources already exist, just not where they are needed most.
04. Applied medical anthropology and diverse cultures.
As our textbook explains, applied medical anthropology examines how culture, power, and inequality shape health and healthcare, and then uses that knowledge to improve real programs and policies. It is not only about understanding, but also about changing systems.
In Colombia, applied medical anthropology helps integrate Indigenous and Afro-Colombian healing traditions with biomedical care. It examines the effects of armed conflict, displacement, and racism on health and on access to services. Anthropologists work with communities and health institutions to adapt mental health programs, maternal care, and primary care to local realities.
In the United States, applied medical anthropology focuses on barriers faced by immigrant communities, racial minorities, and people who mistrust institutions. It studies how language, legal status, discrimination, and economic precarity affect health behaviors and outcomes. It also informs culturally competent care and community based interventions.
In a world that takes healthcare seriously as a human right, applied medical anthropology becomes a bridge between universal principles and local realities. It helps ensure that universal healthcare systems are not rigid, one size fits all models, but living systems that listen to the cultures, histories, and everyday experiences of the people they serve.
Universal, comprehensive, and fairly funded healthcare will only work well if it understands the people it is meant to protect. Applied medical anthropology offers exactly that kind of understanding.
Final reflection.
Looking at healthcare through Colombia, the United States, and the global landscape leads to a clear conclusion. Healthcare must be a human right. It must be comprehensive, it must be universal, and it must be informed by culture and by the social realities people live every day.
The wealth that is needed already exists in the world. The question is how it is distributed and what our priorities are. Universal healthcare reduces poverty, stabilizes societies, strengthens economies, and creates more equal starting conditions for children and families. Health workers can and should be well paid. Communities can and should be heard. Applied medical anthropology can and should help guide these changes so that they are not only technical reforms, but deeply human ones.
A world where everyone has real access to healthcare is not a technical fantasy. It is an ethical and political decision. The question is no longer whether we can afford it. The question is whether we are willing to choose it.