Universal Health Coverage for Undocumented Migrants. The Spanish Case

Abstract

Implementation of the universal right to health, along with the UN’s goal to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), face common challenges to ensuring universal health care entitlement. One of these difficulties is health care restrictions for undocumented migrants. A recent example is the Spanish health care regulation that places universal coverage at risk by restricting access to it by this group. The work herein examines the right to health and UHC’s regulations with the aim of determining if access to health care services for undocumented migrants is indeed recognized and if this recognition could therefore be valid to limit those kinds of measures. The UHC proposal does not sufficiently deal with this problem. Regarding the right to health, even though there are some limitations within international human rights laws regarding protection for this group, it can be concluded that the right to health is also applicable to undocumented migrants.