查看文章

In 2008 United States President Barack Obama declared that health care “should be a right for every American”. 1 This statement, although noble, does not reflect US healthcare statistics in recent times, with the number of uninsured reaching over 50 million in 2010. 2 Such disparity has sparked a political drive towards change, and the introduction of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). 3 These changes have been highly polemical, raising the fundamental question of whether health care is a right; a contract between the nation and its inhabitants granted at birth, or an entitlement; a privilege that must be earned as opposed to universally provided.