Positive health: the human right to health care under the New York State Constitution.

I. INTRODUCTION

In his first State of the State address, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer recognized the urgent need to "reform our health care system." (1) He explained that "when 2.8 million New Yorkers can't afford health insurance, that affects not only them and their families,

it affects everyone," and promised to take steps to make health care more affordable and accessible to all New Yorkers. (2)

As the governor recognized, access to quality health care is essential to realizing our full potential as individuals, families, communities, and as a society. Our children learn more effectively when they come to school healthy and strong. Our workforce is more productive and our economy more robust when workers and their families receive quality health care. Affordability of care promotes not only good health, but also economic security. In addition, the affordability and quality of the health care that all of us receive improves drastically when our system prevents and treats health problems early and through regular, rather than emergency, care. (3)

Conversely, the entire state suffers when people and whole communities are denied meaningful access to care. Those ill effects are exacerbated when some communities are repeatedly burdened with multiple barriers to quality care, and when the racial or economic make-up of communities plays a role in determining who has access to care. (4)

Equal access to quality health care for all New Yorkers is a top priority for the State's residents. (5) An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe that everyone in the State has a right to health care, (6) and hold federal, state, and local government responsible for fulfilling that right.