-eggs
-cheddar cheese
-bread
-hotdogs
-ketchup
-milk
-orange juice
-cream cheese
-butter
-chicken
-salsa
-chocolate syrup
This list of what is in my fridge does not seem to show alot about my culture, except that most of these things are packaged in plastic containers. What this shows is that we are a pretty wasteful culture because we package food which gets consumed, and than discarded, in material which does not biodegrade. I think that what is even more wasteful is that certain packages such as the chocolate syrup bottle CAN be refilled (the cap screws off) but their is no real environmentally friendly way to refill the bottle. I do not think that this is an American specific problem, food is packaged virtually the same in every other developed country in the world. For that reason, I really do not know what this shows about America in particular.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Big Health Care Paper
What should the United States strive for in a national health care plan, and what factors have contributed to our lack of universal health?
America was the first country to land on the moon and the first to fly a plane. We've been setting social trends for the world since the 1900's. Most every world culture has become "Americanized", yet through all of this, we remain the only modernized country without universal, government paid, or single payer health care. This is an idea known as "American exceptional ism". Basically we are the only exception to the rest of the developed world which has a universal health care system in place for its people.
In America, we have HMO's (health maintenance organization), a privatized health care industry, which is a basic health care organization where those with HMO coverage are covered for care provided by a network of doctors and specialist who are registered with the HMO. Care that is provided outside of the network is not covered and their is discretion on the part of the companies to determine what can and cant be paid for. This is what the industry calls pre- existing conditions, and is the source of the countless lawsuits against the HMO's who try and provide the least care they are legally bound to provide. Because of these "pre- existing conditions" many patients are denied very vital care and often die or go broke trying to pay for the care themselves. In a system like this, it makes you wonder why after the 36 years (first created in its current form in 1973) since the program was started, it has not been replaced?
The problem in America is that we have a massive lobby for the health care industry in our nations capital. According to Michael Moore's film SiCKO, the health care lobbyist to senator ratio is 4 lobbyists for every senator. What this shows is how unavoidable it has become for senators not to push legislation and vote in favor of legislation that supports the health care industry. The way i think about it, is that if you have 4 people who constantly are giving you "gifts", large cash donations, and buying you meals, their own agenda will eventually make their way into how you vote and what you publicly support. With the creation of the HMO (health maintenance organization) system, health care has become an industry with a vested interest in making a profit (just like any other capitalist for- profit company). If this system worked, that would be one thing, still corrupt, but functional. Instead, the united states has a global health care rank of #37, just below Costa Rica (#36), and right above Slovenia (#38). For one of the worlds wealthiest countries, a ranking of 37 for the health care of its people is simply unacceptable.
This system can mostly be attributed to former president Nixon who, signed into law what is known as the HMO. This HMO- for profit medical organization was founded by Henry Kaiser and Sidney R. Garfield in 1945, but remained an option for care, not the dominant national plan. In 1973, Henry's son Edgar Kaiser proposed to John Ehrlichman (the Chief Domestic Advisor to Nixon) that America adopt his fathers program on a national level. Ehrlichman than proposed this plan to Nixon in a meeting that can be credited with the birth of privatized health care. A part of the transcript from the meeting is as follows.
Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”
President Nixon: “I don’t [unclear] …”
Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”
President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
After this conversation, Nixon went on to green light the HMO act of 1973 which was essentially Kaisers plan. What resulted, was the variant of HMO which we use in America today, called the Kaiser Permanente. Health care became an industry which was no different at a basic capitalist level than the auto industry. Ehrlichman proposed this for profit system to the president for the very reasons that make the Permanente an extremely corrupted and broken system today. Since 1973, Kaiser has continued operation, now in 9 states, with a non- profit corporate status. This non- profit corporation however generates an annual revenue of $22.5 billion, to me this seems like a profit.
I think that we need to move away from this HMO system as fast as possible, and towards universal health. Right now, President Obama is proposing a new health care system which does not replace the old HMO, but rather improve it. According to his website, the new plan gets rid of the main problem with the for- profit system; pre-existing conditions. In his plan, insurance companies will now be required to cover pre- existing conditions, therefor getting rid of a large part of the incentive to provide less care to generate a greater profit. Another positive step with his plan is that Obama will ensure all of the 50 million uninsured Americans through a national government health plan modeled off of the health plan that members of congress have. This government health plan will for that matter be available to everyone in America who decides to choose government health care over HMO care.
When we were interviewing people on what they thought of the health care in the United States, our class interviewed a man named Kevin Ulysses Nelson III, who told us he had just finished serving a prison sentence for the last 27 years. He made what I thought was a very simple yet important point;
"The problem in the U.S. is not that the care is bad. The care is good, and the doctors are good. The problem is that not enough people have access to it. When not enough people can afford care, the system failed, and it did. The people working for the system in the hospitals, the clinics and elsewhere are all doing their jobs as well as they could given what the system allowed, these people did not fail."
When we interviewed Mr. Marx, he told us that he thought that the HMO system could never work. He told us that when you have profit factored into health care, profit will always take priority over the health of the people who generate the profit. He also said that he was against Obama's plan, but in favor of single payer health care.
"In single payer health care you have more freedom and choice in the system, while with Obama's plan, my fear is mainly of government bureaucracy, which I don't trust, being in charge of my health care"
Single payer health care is a form of health care payment for universal health coverage. Basically with single payer, you can go to any doctor or hospital you want, with payment coming from a fund which can be national, statewide or county based. It makes it so you can get the best care for free, with no restriction on where you can seek care. An example of a country with Single payer is Canada where the people receive free care, the hospitals are maintained through provincial funds, and doctors are paid by the government for their services.
This made me think about what the Obama plan is offering, a solution to fix the system, not the care. The Obama plan offers an improvement to the system if people wish to stay on the HMO plan, but it also creates an alternative to a system which is broken. It seems that the idea here is that by offering a better system, people may stay on their old health plans, but slowly people will move towards the government care once they see that they can get the same care they get for a premium with the HMO's, at a fraction of the cost with the public plan.
If we want to strive for the best possible health care system we can get, I do not think Obama's plan is it. I feel like it is a compromise of something which is supposed to be a right as an American. I believe that Obama does want to make a plan where their is no private health care industry and the HMO's are shut down, but the lobby in our political system is to strong and the plan would get shut down very quickly. By making a less drastic plan, Obama should be able to pass his plan, and in time the CIGNA's and Humana's will no longer find it profitable to compete with the government for the business of its citizens health, and we will have universal health in America at last.
Sources
http://www.kaiserthrive.org/about-kaiser/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51P84G20090226
America was the first country to land on the moon and the first to fly a plane. We've been setting social trends for the world since the 1900's. Most every world culture has become "Americanized", yet through all of this, we remain the only modernized country without universal, government paid, or single payer health care. This is an idea known as "American exceptional ism". Basically we are the only exception to the rest of the developed world which has a universal health care system in place for its people.
In America, we have HMO's (health maintenance organization), a privatized health care industry, which is a basic health care organization where those with HMO coverage are covered for care provided by a network of doctors and specialist who are registered with the HMO. Care that is provided outside of the network is not covered and their is discretion on the part of the companies to determine what can and cant be paid for. This is what the industry calls pre- existing conditions, and is the source of the countless lawsuits against the HMO's who try and provide the least care they are legally bound to provide. Because of these "pre- existing conditions" many patients are denied very vital care and often die or go broke trying to pay for the care themselves. In a system like this, it makes you wonder why after the 36 years (first created in its current form in 1973) since the program was started, it has not been replaced?
The problem in America is that we have a massive lobby for the health care industry in our nations capital. According to Michael Moore's film SiCKO, the health care lobbyist to senator ratio is 4 lobbyists for every senator. What this shows is how unavoidable it has become for senators not to push legislation and vote in favor of legislation that supports the health care industry. The way i think about it, is that if you have 4 people who constantly are giving you "gifts", large cash donations, and buying you meals, their own agenda will eventually make their way into how you vote and what you publicly support. With the creation of the HMO (health maintenance organization) system, health care has become an industry with a vested interest in making a profit (just like any other capitalist for- profit company). If this system worked, that would be one thing, still corrupt, but functional. Instead, the united states has a global health care rank of #37, just below Costa Rica (#36), and right above Slovenia (#38). For one of the worlds wealthiest countries, a ranking of 37 for the health care of its people is simply unacceptable.
This system can mostly be attributed to former president Nixon who, signed into law what is known as the HMO. This HMO- for profit medical organization was founded by Henry Kaiser and Sidney R. Garfield in 1945, but remained an option for care, not the dominant national plan. In 1973, Henry's son Edgar Kaiser proposed to John Ehrlichman (the Chief Domestic Advisor to Nixon) that America adopt his fathers program on a national level. Ehrlichman than proposed this plan to Nixon in a meeting that can be credited with the birth of privatized health care. A part of the transcript from the meeting is as follows.
Ehrlichman: “This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “This … this is a …”
President Nixon: “I don’t [unclear] …”
Ehrlichman: “… private enterprise one.”
President Nixon: “Well, that appeals to me.”
Ehrlichman: “Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can … the reason he can do it … I had Edgar Kaiser come in … talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because …”
President Nixon: [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
After this conversation, Nixon went on to green light the HMO act of 1973 which was essentially Kaisers plan. What resulted, was the variant of HMO which we use in America today, called the Kaiser Permanente. Health care became an industry which was no different at a basic capitalist level than the auto industry. Ehrlichman proposed this for profit system to the president for the very reasons that make the Permanente an extremely corrupted and broken system today. Since 1973, Kaiser has continued operation, now in 9 states, with a non- profit corporate status. This non- profit corporation however generates an annual revenue of $22.5 billion, to me this seems like a profit.
I think that we need to move away from this HMO system as fast as possible, and towards universal health. Right now, President Obama is proposing a new health care system which does not replace the old HMO, but rather improve it. According to his website, the new plan gets rid of the main problem with the for- profit system; pre-existing conditions. In his plan, insurance companies will now be required to cover pre- existing conditions, therefor getting rid of a large part of the incentive to provide less care to generate a greater profit. Another positive step with his plan is that Obama will ensure all of the 50 million uninsured Americans through a national government health plan modeled off of the health plan that members of congress have. This government health plan will for that matter be available to everyone in America who decides to choose government health care over HMO care.
When we were interviewing people on what they thought of the health care in the United States, our class interviewed a man named Kevin Ulysses Nelson III, who told us he had just finished serving a prison sentence for the last 27 years. He made what I thought was a very simple yet important point;
"The problem in the U.S. is not that the care is bad. The care is good, and the doctors are good. The problem is that not enough people have access to it. When not enough people can afford care, the system failed, and it did. The people working for the system in the hospitals, the clinics and elsewhere are all doing their jobs as well as they could given what the system allowed, these people did not fail."
When we interviewed Mr. Marx, he told us that he thought that the HMO system could never work. He told us that when you have profit factored into health care, profit will always take priority over the health of the people who generate the profit. He also said that he was against Obama's plan, but in favor of single payer health care.
"In single payer health care you have more freedom and choice in the system, while with Obama's plan, my fear is mainly of government bureaucracy, which I don't trust, being in charge of my health care"
Single payer health care is a form of health care payment for universal health coverage. Basically with single payer, you can go to any doctor or hospital you want, with payment coming from a fund which can be national, statewide or county based. It makes it so you can get the best care for free, with no restriction on where you can seek care. An example of a country with Single payer is Canada where the people receive free care, the hospitals are maintained through provincial funds, and doctors are paid by the government for their services.
This made me think about what the Obama plan is offering, a solution to fix the system, not the care. The Obama plan offers an improvement to the system if people wish to stay on the HMO plan, but it also creates an alternative to a system which is broken. It seems that the idea here is that by offering a better system, people may stay on their old health plans, but slowly people will move towards the government care once they see that they can get the same care they get for a premium with the HMO's, at a fraction of the cost with the public plan.
If we want to strive for the best possible health care system we can get, I do not think Obama's plan is it. I feel like it is a compromise of something which is supposed to be a right as an American. I believe that Obama does want to make a plan where their is no private health care industry and the HMO's are shut down, but the lobby in our political system is to strong and the plan would get shut down very quickly. By making a less drastic plan, Obama should be able to pass his plan, and in time the CIGNA's and Humana's will no longer find it profitable to compete with the government for the business of its citizens health, and we will have universal health in America at last.
Sources
http://www.kaiserthrive.org/about-kaiser/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51P84G20090226
Monday, April 20, 2009
SiCKO Response/ My Family's Health Plan Research
The health care that my family has is under a family plan through my mother’ union 1199 SEIU, which covers me, my brother, my mom and my dad. As far as I have heard from my parents, they have paid out a good deal of our medical bills. This includes hospital visits, ER visits, doctors appointments, and everthing else. Personally I have not spent that much time in an emergency room, but between me, and my family, we have gone a good number of times to the ER. The only real problem with a high medical bill that my parents told me about was not for any of the people in my family, but my dog (Harpo) who had to be taken to the hospital right before he died. The veteranarian, and animal hospital bill was not at all covered by insurance, so the total cost for not being able to save my dog was around $7,000 which we will be paying off for quite some time.
Recently my dad has been sick and undergone treatment for prostate cancer. The recovery and procedure went well and he has been recovering very well. I remember that around the time he first told me that he had cancer, he was also trying to decide what treatment option he would be choosing. The interesting thing was hearing how he ruled out certain treatment options because they were not covered by the insurance. Once we watched SiCKO, I realized that had the only viable option for treatment not been covered by the insurance, we might not have been able to afford treatment, which for me is some scary shit.
As far as I know nobody in my family has been denied treatment, but I do know that my great aunt who was like a second mother to my dad, was treated very poorly in the hospital before she died. My dad found out and sued the hospital for negligence (I think it was negligence) and he won, but his aunt was still dead.
I think that in contrast, my experience, and my families experance with health care has been much better than the average experience of people in America, and far better than the experience of anyone in Michael Moore’s movie. This proves not that his movie is an unfair depiction of the American health care system (the opposite is true; the movie very accurately depicts our health system), but that my family and I have been pretty fortunate in our lives as far as medical bills and expenses are concerned.
Recently my dad has been sick and undergone treatment for prostate cancer. The recovery and procedure went well and he has been recovering very well. I remember that around the time he first told me that he had cancer, he was also trying to decide what treatment option he would be choosing. The interesting thing was hearing how he ruled out certain treatment options because they were not covered by the insurance. Once we watched SiCKO, I realized that had the only viable option for treatment not been covered by the insurance, we might not have been able to afford treatment, which for me is some scary shit.
As far as I know nobody in my family has been denied treatment, but I do know that my great aunt who was like a second mother to my dad, was treated very poorly in the hospital before she died. My dad found out and sued the hospital for negligence (I think it was negligence) and he won, but his aunt was still dead.
I think that in contrast, my experience, and my families experance with health care has been much better than the average experience of people in America, and far better than the experience of anyone in Michael Moore’s movie. This proves not that his movie is an unfair depiction of the American health care system (the opposite is true; the movie very accurately depicts our health system), but that my family and I have been pretty fortunate in our lives as far as medical bills and expenses are concerned.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Internet Research: Poverty Questions
In class we have been looking at the American system of taxation, and poverty in America. We used two activities in class, using chairs to represent the economic spectrum in our country. The first activity showed the breakdown of the wealth by having people sit and control a number of chairs in relation to their wealth (i.e. Andy had the most money, in the highest economic bracket, so he controlled 6 chairs all to himself). The second activity was a musical chairs game, where people had their names labeled on certain chairs to signify that they were owned (I controlled 4 chairs to start and eventually ended up with 6). This activity showed how the few people who start out with wealth, end having control of the wealth, while a majority of the people struggled to compete for a very small number of job opportunity. At the end of this activity everyone who started with a chair either had more or the same amount, and only one person who did not originally have a chair (Kevin), ended up with one. The rest of the class however "lost" the game.
- What is the current amount of funding available for welfare programs in the US?
The amount of funding approved in Iowa for 2009, is $131,600,471. This is funding for "child and family services" in Iowa
http://www.dhs.iowa.gov/docs/10-401-HHS-007B-Child-Welfare.pdf
- What percentage of the US lives below the poverty line?
The poverty rate in America has been around 12- 17% on average, but according to government studies, 59% of people will spend at least one year below the poverty line between ages 25- 75.
This graph is from the census report: "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005" and it shows the amount of people in poverty given the year, and the percentage of the population living in poverty.
- Who (government office) is responsible for the distribution of government checks?
The Department of Labor is the agency in the US, in charge of unemployment checks, Health Care and many more social welfare programs. They are responsible for the distribution of the checks for such programs as well.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/programs_initiatives.html
- How does the unemployment rate today compare to that of the great depression, or even the Vietnam war?
The unemployment rate in 1932 was 24.9%, today in 2009 (march) it is 8.5%. The important thing to remember is that in 1932 the population of the US, was 124,840,471, meaning roughly 31,000,000 people were unemployed in 1932. The current US population is 305,529,237 so 8.5% of that puts the number of unemployed at about 26,000,000. This is alarming as the comparative rate of unemployment between now and the great depression are about the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://www.bls.gov/
- Now that most public housing projects are filled, where do people who are elegible for the Section-8 program apply?
As of now, no alternate program exists for section-8 housing but newer sectioned housing projects are being built, allowing more space for those in need of homes and a higher quality of living for those living in unacceptable conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/realestate/alternative-to-section-housing.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
- How many people living below the poverty line ARE employed?
According to a report from the "Working Poor Family Project", 28% of people living below the poverty line, are families where one or both parents are employed. This was based off of data from 2004- 2006 and the report was released in 2008. This is highly relevant because we know that almost 30% of those in poverty are making wages lower than the US government has deemed a livable wage.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21032.htm
Questions I Still need to Answer:
-What percentage of people living below the poverty line claim any form of social benefit?
-How do the homeless receive these benefits?
- What is the current amount of funding available for welfare programs in the US?
The amount of funding approved in Iowa for 2009, is $131,600,471. This is funding for "child and family services" in Iowa
http://www.dhs.iowa.gov/docs/10-401-HHS-007B-Child-Welfare.pdf
- What percentage of the US lives below the poverty line?
The poverty rate in America has been around 12- 17% on average, but according to government studies, 59% of people will spend at least one year below the poverty line between ages 25- 75.
This graph is from the census report: "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005" and it shows the amount of people in poverty given the year, and the percentage of the population living in poverty.
- Who (government office) is responsible for the distribution of government checks?
The Department of Labor is the agency in the US, in charge of unemployment checks, Health Care and many more social welfare programs. They are responsible for the distribution of the checks for such programs as well.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/programs_initiatives.html
- How does the unemployment rate today compare to that of the great depression, or even the Vietnam war?
The unemployment rate in 1932 was 24.9%, today in 2009 (march) it is 8.5%. The important thing to remember is that in 1932 the population of the US, was 124,840,471, meaning roughly 31,000,000 people were unemployed in 1932. The current US population is 305,529,237 so 8.5% of that puts the number of unemployed at about 26,000,000. This is alarming as the comparative rate of unemployment between now and the great depression are about the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://www.bls.gov/
- Now that most public housing projects are filled, where do people who are elegible for the Section-8 program apply?
As of now, no alternate program exists for section-8 housing but newer sectioned housing projects are being built, allowing more space for those in need of homes and a higher quality of living for those living in unacceptable conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/19/realestate/alternative-to-section-housing.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
- How many people living below the poverty line ARE employed?
According to a report from the "Working Poor Family Project", 28% of people living below the poverty line, are families where one or both parents are employed. This was based off of data from 2004- 2006 and the report was released in 2008. This is highly relevant because we know that almost 30% of those in poverty are making wages lower than the US government has deemed a livable wage.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21032.htm
Questions I Still need to Answer:
-What percentage of people living below the poverty line claim any form of social benefit?
-How do the homeless receive these benefits?
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