The Right to Financial Accessibility of Health Care for Children

Innovative pharmacotherapies such as stem cell-based gene therapy for children experience difficulty receiving financial coverage due to their high costs, barring access for children dependent upon these therapies. This raises the question to which extent states should guarantee financial accessibility of health care for children. Therefore, general principles are deduced using a holistic human rights-based approach with Article 24 CRC as basis. This is the primordial codification for children's human right to health, delineating, e.g. in European context, Article 8 ECHR. It is concluded that health care which is life-saving, improves development, promotes dignity, or results in inhuman treatment if denied, needs to be made financially accessible by the state; except if the implementation is beyond the maximum extent of available resources. These criteria are useful in the interpretation of the right to health and can answer which innovative health care technologies for children ought to be made financially accessible.