Political Contestation of the Right to Health in the United States: Eighty Years of Conservative Opposition to Health and Human Rights.

The United States stands apart from other nations in opposing the right to health under international law, with longstanding conservative opposition to a human right to health holding back policy efforts to realize health care and underlying determinants of health-at home and throughout the world. Over the past 80 years, American conservative ideology has presented persistent political obstacles to the advancement of health as a human right, challenging who is entitled to rights and what those rights entail. This ideological opposition has reframed health as a narrow privilege for some rather than an expansive right for all. Examining the historical evolution of the right to health since the end of World War II, this paper analyzes how shifting conservative opposition over the years has undermined human rights in health policy and culminated in existential challenges for health systems. The paper concludes that the guarantee of health as a human right must be codified as a defining principle of American democracy, enshrining constitutive commitments to health as a foundation for a healthier future under law.