On Dec. 10, 1948, the United States signed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaimed that every human being has the right to health and medical care. In 1966, the United States signed the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which proclaimed the same right.

Now we, alone among advanced nations, have denied that right for our citizens. We, the United States, whose Bill of Rights set the standard for citizen rights that is at the center of constitutions around the world. We alone do not provide universal health care. Health care is a basic right for Germans, French, Spanish, Japanese, Canadians, British, Italians and tens of millions of others, but not for Americans. More than 40 million Americans lack health insurance, and 20,000 Americans die each year from this lack of care, a denial of a human right we as a nation once believed in.

Is health care a basic human right to be guaranteed by our government, as we apparently once believed, or is it a luxury to be purchased only by those who can afford it, as is the case today? If our ethics have changed, why?

Al Forsyth

River Heights