Americans have no federal right to quality health care, health insurance, or non-emergency treatment. In the United States, there are more than 45 million people without health insurance, and many more are seriously underinsured as their insurance companies find whatever loopholes possible to refuse to pay for the treatments necessary to their well-being... Most Americans would agree that our health care system is just not up to par, but the debate on how to fix it is undeniably one of the biggest and most controversial political issues of our time.

There are, however, some key rights. Children insured through the low-income Medicaid program, for example, are eligible for basic pediatric care—such as hearing and vision tests and lead screening. However, it is becoming more and more difficult for people and their families to get the health care the federal Medicaid Act guarantees.

For example, Westside Mothers, a group of women in Detroit, Michigan, found that their state wasn't providing their children with the basic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services required by Medicaid, so they took their case to the courts. Although these women eventually won, they found themselves in a larger battle over the effort to limit the rights of individuals to take a state to court and hold it accountable to its citizens.
A group of parents in Kentucky brought a case to court on behalf of their children because the public housing they lived in was full of lead paint, which can cause severe brain damage in children. Their housing authority refused to remove it, relying on recent Supreme Court and federal court decisions. The federal court hearing the case ruled that the parents couldn't go to court to enforce their rights under the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act, the law passed by Congress to force housing authorities and property owners to remove lead paint. The court also said its decision might have been different had the parents owned or leased their property, but that because these individuals lived in public housing they had no right to bring this case.

People in immigrant communities all across the country struggle to understand medical advice and the instructions on their prescriptions, often with life or death consequences. Medical providers have the responsibility to ensure that they are communicating with their patients, from listening to concerns to talking about diagnoses and proposed treatments. Federal law says that hospitals or other health-care providers that take federal money must make their services available in languages people can understand, but, as a result of a Supreme Court ruling in a case called Alexander v. Sandoval, people can no longer go to court to enforce this law.

As a result of recent Supreme Court rulings, a right to quality health care for all of us is much further away than it was a few years ago. We are left without the weapons to fight the more subtle forms of discrimination in health care, such as high numbers of uninsured people in communities of color, bias shown by medical providers, and the lack of translation services in health care settings for people with limited English.

For more information:
Our always-growing library of resources about health care
http://www.healthlaw.org/
Westside Mothers v. Haveman (289 F.3d 852, 2002)
L.B. III v. Housing Authority of Louisville (345 F. supp.2d 725 (W.D. Ky), 2004)
Alexander v. Sandoval (532 U.S. 275, 2001)

For what you can do to help stop the erosion of civil rights, click here.