The Pluralist Right to Health Care: A Framework and Case Study

Health rights are a common but controversial legal phenomenon. Every country is signatory to a treaty that incorporates health rights, yet existing health rights do not fit easily into the traditional "claim right" model, and questions remain over how to theoretically incorporate health rights into domestic systems. The Pluralist Right to Health Care addresses this incongruity between theory and practice with an account of the right to health care that is both philosophically and practically sound. Utilizing a pluralist framework, Michael Da Silva argues that the right to health care is best understood as a set of claims to related ends: the goods necessary for a dignified existence, procedural fairness in determining what other goods to provide and in the provision of goods, and a functioning health care system. Through philosophical reasoning, analysis of relevant international human rights law, and a close study of the Canadian case, The Pluralist Right to Health Care provides crucial insight into the potential of law and policy to improve health care systems in Canada and beyond.