Health Care is an Economic Human Right Toolkit
What is this toolkit used for?
This toolkit is designed as a set of tools to understand the connections between health care and our human rights. The toolkit can be used by community groups, labor organizations, or any other public or private forum in which people are curious about how to effectively fight for our human right to health care. We encourage you to pass out the information at public events, conduct trainings with upcoming leaders, adapt the tools included to reflect the issues in your area, and supplement the toolkit with articles about local current events. Send us the work you do and we’ll do the same! Together we can move on to a single standard of care: universal health care for all!
Each tool can be used individually or in combination with other tools in order to carry out whatever specific work you are trying to accomplish. For instance, training on “women and health care” might use our “Women,Poverty, & STIs” fact sheet in combination with the “Reproductive Rights” fact sheet and they might both be used with the Health care Human Rights Violation Addendum Form to document the human rights violations experienced by the women using the tools. Training on health care policy debates may simply use the activities designated by the "Health Care: A Human Right" Curriculum (based on the "Just Health Care" Curriculum) in combination with a selection of articles on recent policy debates.
What is inside the toolkit?
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FACT SHEET: Reproductive Rights and Healthcare Access
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| POWER POINT: Health Care: A Human Right Timeline (Coming Soon!) | ||
ARTICLE: Meet the Economist Who Thinks We're Doomed  |
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FACTS & FIGURES: A look at California Medicaid Program-CHCF.org |
STATE & FEDERAL REFORMS: Human Rights Principles for Health Care in the US |
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VIDEO: Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? - Documentary exploring how poverty, race, and gender affect our health |
MEDIA: How To's from the Center for Media Justice Communicate Justice 101: PREVIEW! |
What are the principles that guide the use of this toolkit?
1) Health care is a human right, not a benefit or privilege.
2) We must organize for the change that we hope to see.
3) Poor and working people have the biggest stake in winning quality universal health care. They should be at the helm of efforts for change.
4) Everyone who wants to be at the table for quality universal health care has a place at the table.
5) There is an answer to the health care crisis. What is lacking is the political will to fight for solutions.
6) In order to win and protect true health care reform, we must be educated and continue to educate others on the health care crisis and its solutions.
What are the elements of a successful Health Care is a Human Right Campaign?
This toolkit will educate you on the health care crisis and its solutions. It is not enough, however, to be educated. That knowledge must be passed on, amplified, and spread. Some ideas that have been successful in our work include:
- Hold Community Forums and Hearings, especially Healthcare NOW’s citizen’s hearings on national universal health care legislation
- Distribute Fact Sheets
- Document Health Care and Human Rights Violations at public events, clinic waiting rooms, protests, homeless outreach centers, union meetings, etc.
- Supplement local health care struggles with a broader human rights framing
- Speak out on health care and human rights
"We, the poor, jobless, downsized, uninsured victims of welfare reform and others abused by the institutions of domination are no longer silent. We are moving forward with the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and so many freedom fighters to improve the lives of Americans."
-Portia Anderson, WEAP
Upcoming Events
| 03/03/12 | Support for Families of Children with Disabilities Conference (San Francisco) |
| 04/05/12 | World Courts of Women on Poverty in the US |
| 06/30/12 | National March on Washington |