1. Should all world citizens have free (no cost) access to basic health care, or should nations have the right to limit access to health care based on their societal values and goals? No. – this answer is ambiguous 2. Why? If we are talking about developed countries, there is a nearly universal commitment of assuring universal access to care. The methods of financing and organization may differ, and the actual kinds of care provided may vary somewhat, but there is overall agreement that universal access is a social obligation, even a right, and there are institutions that approximate such coverage. But there are some barriers, to access remain even in these countries, especially geographical maldistribution of services and inequalities in access for some indigenous or minority groups. Serious limitations on access remain in developed and developing countries alike. There is a financial barrier, on 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S and elsewhere who cannot buy insurance assured to others; in all …show more content…
Nevertheless, it is probably fair to say that all that most people have in mind when they talk about equal access to health care is a negative criterion, specifically that certain traditional constraints on access, mainly financial, geographical, or discriminatory, should play a minimal role in determining whether people who need health care get it. There may be implicit in this negative characterization a positive ideal—for example, “any any two persons of comparable health status who want appropriate care have an equal chance of getting it.” But nothing so schematic may be in anyone 's mind at all; there may be only a moral complaint against a particular inequality. Thus in many cases there is agreement about what to call equal access only because there is agreement not to accept a particular kind of