Published last week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Art Caplan discusses the “right to reform”. What does this quite simple sounding phrase mean?
Well, those three words say a lot more than one might guess at first glance. In Caplan’s argument, he claims that health reform both is all wrapped up and mired down in it quite a lot of ethics talk, values language, and moral commitments which both makes health reform so essential and, quite frankly, so difficult.
But that’s why getting bogged down in the details and letting health reform “simply die under the weight of nitpicking, fear-mongering, sloganeering, and the invocation of details as obstructions to change” would be such a travesty.
As I read Caplan’s argument, not only is there a right to health reform, but it is right to reform because all citizens deserve access to basic health care.
And I simply couldn’t agree more.
Summer Johnson, PhD