Health Care as a National Right? The Development of Health Care Services for Migrant Workers in Israel

Abstract

The waves of migrant workers which characterize our globalized world have resulted in governments and societies being faced with the problem of providing an adequate response to migrant workers' health needs. The various responses to this challenge brought researchers to ask themselves whether the national state still frames citizenship and rights or whether we are witnessing a decoupling of national belonging and rights.

The present paper studies the development of health care services for migrant workers in Israel as a contribution to this discussion. The article analyses the interaction between the ethno-national conception of citizenship and other kinds of logic which regulate the organization of health care, such as the logic of public health, the logic of health economics and the logic of rights. It is the paper's claim that in the Israeli case the ethno-national conception of citizenship still plays a dominant – albeit not unique – role in the development of health care services for migrant workers.