The Challenge of Interdisciplinarity in Operationalizing the Right to Health.

Interdisciplinary collaboration between the health and human rights communities is essential to operationalize the right to health. In practice, however, such collaboration has been infrequent. As noted by Jonathan Mann et al.

Engaging Human Rights Norms to Realize Universal Health Care in Massachusetts, USA.

Massachusetts is a national leader in health care, consistently ranking in the top five states in the United States. In 2006, however, only 86% of adults aged 19-64 had health insurance. That year, Governor Romney signed into law An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care.

The Impact of Human Rights on Universalizing Health Care in Vermont, USA.

In 2010, Vermont adopted a new law embracing human rights principles as guidelines for health care reform, and in 2011, Vermont was the first state in the US to enact framework legislation to establish a universal health care system for all its residents. This article reports on the Vermont Workers' Center's human rights-based approach to universal health care and the extent to which this approach influenced decision makers. We found the following: (1) by learning about the human right to health care and sharing experiences, Vermonters were motivated to demand universal health care; (2) mobilizing Vermonters around a unified message on the right to health care made universal health care politically important; (3) using the human rights framework to assess new proposals enabled the Vermont Workers' Center to respond quickly to new policy proposals; (4) framing health care as a human right provided an alternative to the dominant economics-based discourse; and (5) while economics continues to dominate discussions among Vermont leaders, both legislative committees on health care use the human rights principles as guiding norms for health care reform.

Human rights from the grassroots up: Vermont's campaign for universal health care.

In 2008, the Vermont Workers' Center launched the "Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign," a grassroots campaign to secure the creation of a universal health care system in Vermont. Campaign organizers used a human rights framework to mobilize thousands of voters in support of universal health care. In response to this extraordinary grassroots effort, the state legislature passed health care legislation that incorporates human rights principles into Vermont law and provides a framework for universal health care.