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, & STDs” 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?

FACT SHEET: Health Care is an Economic Human Right	FACT SHEET: Poverty in California
FACT SHEET: Women, Poverty and STDs	FACT SHEET: Reproductive Rights and Healthcare Access
FACT SHEET: Recovery is our Economic Human Right	FACT SHEET: Foster Youth & our Economic Human Rights
FACT SHEET: Women and Economic Security	HUMAN RIGHTS CHECKLIST: 7 Building Blocks of Unity in the Fight for Health Justice
FACT SHEET: Food is an Economic Human Right	POWER POINT: Health Care: A Human Right Timeline (Coming Soon!)
ARTICLE: Meet the Economist Who Thinks We're Doomed	PAMPHLET: Health Care: A Human Right
ARTICLE: The Banks Are Coming	ARTICLE: Counting the Poor
ARTICLE: The Slippery Slope of Market-Based Medicine	ARTICLE: Study Says H.S.A More Costly for Women
FACTS & FIGURES: A look at California Medicaid Program-CHCF.org	STATE & FEDERAL REFORMS: Human Rights Principles for Health Care in the US
ARTICLE: World’s Richest 1% Own 40% of All Wealth	PAMPHLET: Massachusetts Health Reform: Solution or Stopgap?
SURVEY: Economic Human Right Violation Form	SURVEY: Health Care Addendum
ACTION: Truth Commission on Health Care: A Human Right How To Hold Your Own Truth Commission!	CURRICULUM: Human Rights, Poverty Elimination, Workers Rights, & Just Health Care considerations (Table of Contents Coming Soon!)
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!   Communicating for Health Justice

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