Through a comparative global study of countries from all continents representing a diversity of health, legal, political, and economic systems, this book explores the role of health rights to advance greater equality through access to health care. Does health care promote equality, or does it in fact advance the opposite result? Does inserting the idea of "the right to health" into health systems allow the reinsertion of public values into systems that are undergoing privatization? Or does it allow for private claims to be rearticulated as "rights," in a way that actually reinforces inequality? This volume includes studies from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, China, and Nigeria, among many others, as well as authors with expertise regarding both the legal and health systems of their countries, making this a seminal study that allows readers to see the differing role of rights in various health systems.