The Individual

With the human population reaching an all-time high of 7.8 billion, individual efforts have never felt more meaningless. However, the founding fathers of America disagree. After all, why did the fathers include the right of free speech as the first amendment in the Bill of Rights, if they believed that individual opinion made no difference? Individual opinions and actions DO make a difference. They can even prompt changes at the local and national levels in a process that can be broken down into four steps. First, an individual must identify a problem and then proceed to act toward solving the problem. These individual actions can vary from joining an organization that supports the cause to raising awareness on social media. As awareness rises, local institutions will join the movement and attempt to implement the suggested solution on a small scale. Eventually, local institutions will grow and band together to make a united appeal for action at the national level. This process of change is currently taking place for the healthcare of the United States.

First off, it is important to highlight why the current healthcare system needs fixing. The problem with the health care system of the United States is that it is based on the ‘cooperation’ of different policies, which decreases the effectiveness of the care delivered and hikes costs. To clarify, Americans can receive health insurance from their jobs, personal expenses, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. This leaves out around 28 million people that were still uninsured as of 2018 according to the census taken that year because the United States is the only developed country without mandatory health insurance (1). Overall, the United States uses up 17.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) to maintain this system which is more than any other developed country. In essence, the healthcare system of the United States is in dire need of change.

In order for healthcare to improve, action/change must start at the individual level. Individuals that identify the troubled healthcare system must first conduct a small study concerning the proposed policies and the parties that proposed them. One example of these proposed policies is single-payer healthcare, which describes a method of financing healthcare by taking a portion of everybody’s income instead of premiums to provide universal healthcare and wide coverage. Another fact that individuals should keep in mind is that often several plans will be combined tp better suit the needs of the people. Technically, both Britain and Canada have single-payer systems that cover all, but Canada relies on private companies to deliver care while Britain delivers the care and regulates drug costs. This miniature study should help individuals make informed decisions when voting for candidates that propose different healthcare plans. Furthermore, understanding the different policies will aid individuals to publicize accurate information on social media platforms and will enable them to spot misinformation. Moreover, individuals can choose to join organizations that advocate for their ideal medicare system and write encouraging letters to representatives. Currently, the biggest supporter of single-payer healthcare is Bernie Sander, and individuals can support his campaign on his website (2). In brief, individuals should start their attempts to fixing healthcare by conducting a study and then proceeding to act in support of the policy they prefer.

As more individuals move to action, local institutions respond to the increasing interest according to the resources available to them. In other words, colleges could conduct surveys or studies on the effectiveness of single-payer healthcare and the public demand for this system. Furthermore, colleges can offer occasional seminars that explain the current system and the alternative systems available. While conducting these seminars, colleges should not choose a system but spread accurate information about all the systems to enable college students to make their own informed decisions about the best fix for healthcare. Colleges could also allow student clubs that keep their members posted about the latest developments concerning healthcare and organize various events to raise donations for hospitals that provide services to the uninsured and needy. Unfortunately, local businesses might struggle to participate in fixing healthcare. One solution for this is for employers to include a detailed explanation of healthcare alongside the insurance coverage they normally provide to their employees. While the response of local institutions may vary, eventually the demand will drive proposals onto the national stage.

Arguably, the last step towards reform can be the most challenging one as officials debate various plans competing for adoption. As the debates begin, the government must make sure that the public is aware of the nature of the plans being discussed. A perfect example of a healthcare debate can be found in a unique article titled “Universal New York Health Care: A Single-Payer Strategy Linking Cost Control and Universal Access” by Doctor Dan E. Beauchamp and Professor Ronald L. They review three different proposals to improve the Healthcare system of the United States. The three proposals discussed were the Physicians for a National Health model, Enthoven and Kronick’s sponsor-based competitive model, and the Universal New York Health Care model. Enthoven and Kronick’s proposal relies on cost-competitive employment-based insurance and provides subsidized insurance for the unemployed. On the other hand, the proposal of the Physicians for a National Health Program is based on the Canadian plan and replaces private health insurance with a tax-based system led by the federal government. After introducing these two major proposals, Doctor Dan E. Beauchamp and Professor Ronald L. Rouse shifted focus to the Universal New York Health Care proposal or UNY-Care9 that takes aspects from the aforementioned two systems and is their personal favorite. The UNY-Care9 retains the system of private and public insurance. However, the private insurance system will be restructured to aid in the fight against medical inflation and reduce paperwork costs by adopting a one-card system of membership between providers and payers. This will result in health care benefits becoming more uniform for all American citizens. Furthermore, the government will pay insurance companies with founds from a one-payer financing structure. Personally, UNY-Care9 seems to be the perfect plan for introducing single-payer healthcare to the United States as it keeps the existing private insurers while introducing the many benefits of single-payer healthcare. Nevertheless, all three of the aforementioned proposals are valid and the authors of the article do an excellent job of explaining them to the reader. This is achieved by clearly explaining the basis on which each system is constructed and the financing system that each proposal will rely on (3). Overall the last step of the change process takes place on the national stage and the government must be transparent with its citizens concerning the policies being discussed.

While it is important to celebrate the passing of legislation aimed at improving the current healthcare system, it is more essential to remember that the achievement would not be possible without the action of individuals nationwide. In other words, what is truly commendable is the courage and effort of individuals who decided to band together to fix a broken system. Furthermore, help that local institutions provide to a movement in the form of research or information is worth of honorable mention as well. Of course, movements differ in their progression through the three steps, but these steps are a reminder of what matters most, in the long run, the individual.

Footnotes:

1.US Census Bureau. “Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2018.” The United States Census Bureau, November 8, 2019. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-267.html.

2.https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

3.Beauchamp, Dan E., PhD. and Ronald L. Rouse M.P.A. “Universal New York Health Care: A Single-Payer Strategy Linking Cost Control and Universal Access.” The New England Journal of Medicine 323, no. 10 (Sep 06, 1990): 640-644. doi:http://dx.doi.org.library2.ramapo.edu:2048/10.1056/NEJM199009063231005. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/docview/1983427945?accountid=13420.

A Seamless Process 

Normally, viewing something that is seamless, like the even surface of a newly paved road or the glassy surface of a calm ocean, fills the beholder with an odd sense of satisfaction. Similarly, policies should work in the same streamlined fashion. In other words, laws that fit together neatly to form a united organization are much easier to navigate than a patchwork system stitched together in a desperate attempt to resemble a functional system. Unfortunately, the current United States healthcare system resembles a dissociated group of ideas bunched together that is costing the United States heavy losses to maintain rather than a polished efficient system.

According to the New York Times, “healthcare in the United States is a mix of clashing ideas.”(1) For instance, some citizens have job-provided health insurance or pay for an insurance package of their choosing. Others received insurance with the aid of the Affordable Care Act. Single-payer Medicare is available mainly for Senors above 65 and low-income people can acquire Medicaid. To top it all off, the 2018 census concluded that there were 28 million people that were still uninsured and that the number of uninsured had risen by 0.4% since 2017 (2). This is due to the fact that the United States is the only developed country that has not signed mandatory health insurance at the federal level into law. Most hospitals are private except those operated by the Veterans Health Administration. In essence, the United States is currently in a state of division when it comes to healthcare and the politicians attempted to find the ‘happy middle ground’ by mashing together pieces of every healthcare system available.

Logically, the next important question to address is the cost of operating the healthcare system of the United States. When all the costs are added up, the United States spends 17.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) to maintain this patchwork system. Shockingly, no other developed country comes close to spending 17.7 percent of their corresponding G.D.P., which means that the United States is the least cost-efficient. Sharing second place on the cost list, are Switzerland and France that spend 11-12 percent of their corresponding G.D.P. to finance healthcare. However, Switzerland has arguably the best medical results worldwide, while France covers near all its citizens with not just one but two layers of insurance! To clarify the first layer is mandatory while the second layer has been bought by most French citizens. The United States, meanwhile, has neither excuse to hide behind. To clarify, the 6 percent difference between 17.7 percent and 11-12 percent is considered to be huge since percentages of the national budget represent trillions of dollars. As the Total Public Debt Outstanding reaches a stunning $24,301,778,443,949.21 according to calculations done by the treasurydirect.gov, it is due time to switch to a new cost-efficient system (3). With the healthcare system in such a terrible financial state, many Americans feel the need for change, but there are still controversial over which system would be best.

In order to convince the public that single-payer healthcare is the most ideal candidate, it is essential to address the various issues that are normally associated with single-payer healthcare. These issues are the connection of single-payer healthcare with socialist ideology, the future of preexisting private insurance companies, the rise of taxation, the decrease in care quality, and the rates at which medical professionals will be paid. Nevertheless, there are solutions to the aforementioned issues. For instance, the question of whether a capitalist country can adopt a socialist policy is a philosophical matter. The answer to that question lies in the fact that there is no such thing as a pure capitalist economy and that each country to ever adopt single-payer healthcare has tweaked the concept to best suit its economy, therefore, changing its socialist nature. Another example of a solvable issue is the future of preexisting private health insurance companies under a single-payer healthcare system. When switching to a single-payer system, private insurance companies do not necessarily need to be removed. Some countries, like Canada, pay insurance companies to provide the care, while others, like Britain, keep private insurance as an option for anyone willing to pay the premiums. One of the central worries about single-payer healthcare is the effect it will have on taxation. According to “House Hearing, 113th Congress – POISED TO PROFIT: HOW OBAMACARE HELPS INSURANCE COMPANIES EVEN IF IT FAILS PATIENTS”, insurance companies have already secured more than one billion dollars in tax money bailout(4). In other words, single-payer healthcare will have little to no effect on taxation because insurance companies are already receiving tax money. Furthermore, citizens will no longer have to pay premiums. I will be addressing these issues and solutions in even more detail on my website to convince the public that single-payer healthcare is the most ideal candidate.

Footnotes:

1.Carroll, Aaron E., and Austin Frakt. “The Best Health Care System in the World: Which One Would You Pick?” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 18, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/best-health-care-system-country-bracket.html.

2.US Census Bureau. “Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2018.” The United States Census Bureau, November 8, 2019. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-267.html.

3. “REPORTS.” Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application). Accessed April 16, 2020. https://treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current.

4.“House Hearing, 113th Congress – POISED TO PROFIT: HOW OBAMACARE HELPS INSURANCE COMPANIES EVEN IF IT FAILS PATIENTS.” Govinfo, 18 June 2014, www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CHRG-113hhrg88826/CHRG-113hhrg88826/summary.

Divide and Conquer

Time has proven the effectiveness of the classical divide and conquer strategy and this strategy is no longer limited to just fighting. As a matter of fact, this old strategy is used in a variety of subjects from computer processing to political arguments. Likewise, most projects can be divided into different portions to aid researchers in gauging their progress. Personally, I divided my project into research, writing, scheduling, and technology portions. 

For the most part, writing is going fine, but I have run into a minor researching hindrance. Initially, I planned to write the ‘History of Social Federal Programs in U.S.’ page under the history menu to provide a helpful summary of welfare in the United States based on the facts found in the ‘Cheering for a team no longer on the field: Rhetoric and reality in American welfare history’ scholarly source to make sure that my summary is historically accurate (1). However, as I began to write that page I realized that having another historical source would add depth and accuracy to the page. After some consideration, I decided to find a book on welfare history rather than an article to both satisfy my need for a secondary historical source and fulfill the long scholarly source requirement of the project. When I started to research, I struggled to find a book that matched my needs. This did not surprise me because most of my researching experience was aimed at finding scholarly articles and not longer sources like books. Finally, I used JSTOR Labs Text Analyzer to find Welfare State Institutions and Labor Market Trends (2). Despite focusing on the effects of job loss on economic insecurity, the author dedicates a section to welfare that is aimed to help individuals that lost their jobs in both the United Staes and Germany. Except for the welfare book, all my research is complete and I am incorporating the facts that I found in the scholarly articles and survey to support my reasoning and conclusions.

Another important aspect of the project is scheduling. When defining project management, the scholarly article titled ‘The role of project management in achieving project success’ included the following three attributes, “….planning the execution of the work, monitoring the progress of the work, and adjusting deviations from the plan.”(3) This was done to emphasize the importance of scheduling when it comes to performing a project. Shockingly, designing a simple schedule can sometimes be a challenging task, especially during a time when virtually every course has had to change there work schedule. Despite these hectic times, most of the work is being done on time. 

Lastly, the technological portion of a project is the most general of the four portions since it can include anything from the software being used to present the project to the social media platforms being used for communication between team members. Personally, the main technological challenge that I have faced so far, is navigating the databanks to find scholarly articles, surveys, and books. Normally, I consider research to be half the work of any project partly because of the search algorithms of library websites. In order to find materials addressing a certain subject, I normally end up needing to do five or more different searches with synonymous words to actually find what I am looking for. Moreover, the web filters are not perfect so I sometimes get sources that are not peer-reviewed or sources that I can not have full access to. These technological flaws can get tedious especially when combined with the challenge of analyzing the often wordy sources.

Footnotes:

1.Levine, Daniel. “Cheering for a Team No Longer on the Field: Rhetoric and Reality in American Welfare History.” Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 35, no. 3, 2001, pp. 733–742., doi:10.1080/00213624.2001.11506398.

2.Ehlert, Martin. “Welfare State Institutions and Labor Market Trends.” In The Impact of Losing Your Job: Unemployment and Influences from Market, Family, and State on Economic Well-Being in the US and Germany, 69-82. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016. Accessed April 8, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1gsmw6t.6.

3.Munns, AK, and BF Bjeirmi. “The Role of Project Management in Achieving Project Success.” International Journal of Project Management. Pergamon, February 22, 1999. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0263786395000577.

A Savory Dish of Data

When served a savory dish, it can be easy to forget the time and effort required to prepare the dish that will only last 10-20 minutes. Similarly, it is easy to forget about the effort put in by statistical analysts to prepare a helpful infographic or statistical table that is only admired by its viewers for a minute or two. Behind every colorful graph, a team of people worked tirelessly to interview thousands of individuals as a reliable population or accurately perform delicate experiments. Moreover, the raw data they collect then needs to be cleaned, processed, stored, interpreted, and then finally laid out as an attractive chart. This tedious process is called data processing, which was summarized by Talend, “as starting with data in its raw form and converting it into a more readable format (graphs, documents, etc.), giving it the form and context necessary to be interpreted…”(1). In other words, making a reliable graph requires data collection and then data processing.

In order to obtain reliable data, researchers can conduct their own study or they can find the data from a trustworthy company or peer group that has already performed the study. Personally, I used the George T. Potter Library and Proquest Medline to acquire my statistics. At first, I found a survey called “AMERICANS’ VALUES AND BELIEFS ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM.” that was conducted by the SSRS, an independent research company, for The Commonwealth Fund, The New York Times, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2). To clarify, the survey focuses on how an individual’s standpoint on the medicare problem correlated with their view of various other subjects. After further research, I was surprised to find that most of the scholarly sources I acquired came with links to data on which the articles were based. However, I ultimately decided to use the first survey I found for several reasons. Not only does the AMERICANS’ VALUES survey provide clean data that is ready to be graphed, but it also provides a wide variety of data sets that correlate individuals’ standpoints on the medicare problem with their view of various other subjects. In other words, the data provided by the survey is both clear and flexible since the data connects to different subjects. This flexibility can allow me to use the data to answer a variety of questions and fit data graphics into various areas of the website. For instance, the most straightforward question I can ask the data is which percentage of Americans support single-payer healthcare, but this question would only scratch the surface. Another question I could ask is how approval of government-run federal programs correlates with preferred medical plans, which can be an important graph for the “other social programs” page of the website where I will theorize that the success of other social programs in the U.S. reflects positively on single-Payer healthcare. The only downside of this survey is that it was conducted only by phone which limits the type of people that could take the survey. On the other hand, using the data sources provided by the scholarly articles seemed like an unnecessary risk since I had no way of knowing how clean, relevant, or flexible the data sources are. In essence, I decided to use the survey because of its advantages and because of the risks associated with using the data sources provided by the scholarly articles.  

Despite the effort that goes into data collection and then data processing, the final step of data processing, the visualization of data, is the most important. Not only is the visualized data the final product of the whole tiring process, but according to Govex the visualized data is also meant “to influence the decision of your viewers…and direct their attention to the relevant parts of your visual”(3). In other words, the visual is supposed to convey a message to the viewer and the visual should make the data that conveys that message clear. For instance, the image below displays Table A from the survey graphed using two deferent methods. By changing the scale of the bar charts the same data can appear vastly different. In graph 1 the difference in percentages is clear but in graph 2 the difference in the percentages looks negatable. To conclude, it is important to consider the impact of the visualized data on the viewers and how different methods of visualization can change this impact.

Footnotes:

1. Pearlman, Shana. “What Is Data Processing? Definition and Stages – Talend Cloud Integration.” Talend Real-Time Open Source Data Integration Software. Accessed April 1, 2020. https://www.talend.com/resources/what-is-data-processing/.
2. “AMERICANS’ VALUES AND BELIEFS ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM.” The Commonwealth Fund, The New York Times, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health by SSRS, October 2019. https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2019/10/CMWF-NYT-Harvard_Final-Report_Oct2019.pdf.
3. Benison, Michael, and Michael Benison. “6 Ways Your Data Visualizations Can Influence Decisions.” Johns Hopkins Center for Government Excellence. Accessed April 1, 2020. https://govex.jhu.edu/wiki/influencing-decisions-with-data-visualizations/.

Progressive Party Standpoint 

Whenever a new political party arises, there is always a rush as the new party establishes and publicizes its standpoint on a variety of matters. During the 1912 election, there were six contestants running for the presidential office due to dissatisfaction with the republican and democrat parties. As the official ballot that has been preserved by Kenosha News shows, former president Theodore Roosevelt was running again in 1912 under the progressive party (1). Understanding this political environment is crucial for understanding documents written during that time period. For instance, Joseph P. Chamberlain’s letter to Jane Addams of Hull House about the progressive party’s stand on old age and sickness insurance is easier to understand with this political backdrop in mind (2). In the letter, Joseph P. Chamberlain, a member of the progressive party and a respected professor at Columbia University, urges Miss Addams, an American settlement activist, to, “call a meeting of your committee, together with the heads of departments of the Progressive Service and, if possible, the National Committees, to take up, broadly, the stand of the Party in regard to certain questions of policy and practicability”(2). In other words, Joseph P. Chamberlain wanted Miss Addams’ assistance in calling together a meeting of distinguished leaders to discuss the various aspects of old age and sickness insurance, like implementation and finances. The goal of this meeting was to help the progressive party take a position on these topics which they have been unable to do so far due to insufficient consideration and the tentative results that the Special Committee on Sickness and Old Age Insurance had produced. A few years after this letter was written, the Social Security Act, SSA, of 1935 was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and The Opp Weekly New of Alabama wrote whole articles dedicated to explaining the various aspects of the Social Security Act to the masses (3). The articles explain how “old-age insurance benefits are based on the total wages received in covered employment between January 1, 1937, and age 65” (3). To clarify, the Social Security Act is a federal program where the government collects a portion of each individual’s wages in exchange for payments to these same individuals after retirement based on their income during employment. 

But how does the Social Security Act connect to, single-payer health insurance (My topic of choice)? The Social Security Act is a perfect example of mandatory insurance controlled by a department of the federal government that benefits citizens in their time of need. Furthermore, all that a citizen needs to be eligible is their social security card. On the other hand, the current health system has individuals choose between packages, hunt for doctors that are covered, then constantly worry about wither their medication or operation is covered. In essence, the Social Security Act is somewhat similar to the single-payer health plan where the individual will not need to worry about a complex system but will simply need to pay their taxes, which most people already do on a normal basis, and have their social security number on hand when they fall ill. However, as the Boston Globe states, that while “it does seem like the most efficient health care systems have a lot of government involvement….you still need a plan to get there” (4). There is still a lot of planning left on the part of the government as they must find a way to gather the funds required to run a federal healthcare system without raising taxes too much.

Footnotes:

1. “28 Oct 1912, 2 – Kenosha News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/595367940/?terms=president+Roosevelt+progressive+party.
2. “Joseph P. Chamberlain to Jane Addams, January 10, 1914.” Jane Addams Digital Edition, https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/6929.
3. “18 Aug 1938, 4 – The Opp Weekly News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/553477924/?terms=old+age+insurance.
4. “14 Sep 2017, A10 – The Boston Globe at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com, www.newspapers.com/image/444658684/?terms=single+payer.

Two Lens

In order to cure the U.S. healthcare system, one must first identify the ailment with the help of sociological theories. Each theory offers a unique perspective and explanation for the same problem. For instance, the conflict and functionalist viewpoints offer different views about the role of a failing healthcare system in society and how individuals will react to it.

After originating from Karl Marx’s ideas, the conflict perspective has become one of the four major standpoints of Social Science. This theory divides society into two layers that are locked in a perpetual war. The politically powerful rich, Bourgeoisie class, exploit the politically weak workers/laborers, Proletariat class, that will unite to uprise against the Bourgeoisie class with political reforms. Furthermore, there is no end to this cycle under the capitalist economy. According to the sociology professor, Anna Leon-Guerrero, when the conflict perspective is used to view the U.S. medical system, it is possible to argue, “our medical industry is based on a capitalist system, founded not on the value of human life but on a pure profit motive.”(1) In other words, the ineffective healthcare system of the U.S. functions as a profit generator for the Bourgeoisie at the expense of the Proletariats. Furthermore, the Bourgeoisie have the finances required to pay for the expensive health insurance, but the Proletariats struggle to pay the bills. However, the Proletariats are aware of the flawed system and have various reform ideas. For instance, the single-payer healthcare plan, where the government would pay for all medical expenses from taxes, has been circulating for a while. Unfortunately, this is where Karl Marx’s ideas deviate from the reality of the situation. To clarify, the conflict perspective states that unity among the Proletariat class is necessary to overpower the Bourgeoisie, but the American people have yet to unite on a healthcare plan. According to a study done for Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, The New York Times, and The Common Wealth Fund, only thirty-two percent of the adults that conducted the survey voted for the single-payer healthcare plan (2). While thirty-two percent is a decent percentage, it is nowhere near the unified Proletariat force that Karl Marx envisioned. The U.S. is not stuck with its current medicare system, however, because the worse conditions get the more likely Americans are to rally behind a common cause.

On the other hand, Functionalism originated from Auguste Comte’s ideas and has been defined by the American education technology company, Chegg, as a sociological viewpoint where, “every single part of society serves a purpose to help that society function properly and in the best way possible”(3). In other words, society is a cohort of different parts that work together to achieve some form of balance. In the case of healthcare, some Functionalists suggest that the costliness of healthcare acts as a form of a motivator for people to work hard and seek better jobs in order to be able to pay their medical bills. Another liable option is that the cost of health care acts as a natural cation sign that encourages individuals to make safe decisions that will not cost them a substantial medical bill. Lastly, functionalists can also argue that society is in a state of instability because of the dysfunctional healthcare system, which is why people are rallying behind various healthcare plans as an effort to restore balance. 

Footnotes:

1. Leon-Guerrero, Anna. Social Problems: Community, Policy and Social Action. 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2019.
2. “Americans’ Values And Beliefs About National Health Insurance Reform.” Americans’ Values And Beliefs About National Health Insurance Reform. Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, The New York Times, and The Common Wealth Fund, October 2019. https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2019/10/CMWF-NYT-Harvard_Final-Report_Oct2019.pdf.
3. Functionalism | Sociology | Chegg Tutors. Functionalism | Sociology | Chegg Tutors. Chegg, 2016. https://www.citationmachine.net/chicago/cite-a-film/manual.

The Perpetual Labor Problem

Exploring the ‘New World’ must have been a thrilling adventure for the Conquistadors of the 16th century, but they soon ran into a serious issue. In order to fulfill one of the central goals of their mission, which was to send shiploads of riches back to the royals that founded the expeditions, the Conquistadors needed a vast labor force to sow the new crops and to dig gold mines. Unfortunately, the unsuspecting Native Americans or ‘Indians’ were easy prey. Similarly, the Britsh people that came on the heels of the Conquistadors ran into a similar issue. Since the British despised the Native ‘Savages’ that lived on their newly acquired land, they turned to indentured servants. However, the horrific hazards of the position soon drove the indentured servants into a riot called Bacon’s Rebellion, which ended the popularity of indentured servitude. Desperate, the colonizers turned to chattel slavery with disastrous consequences that still affect the ‘modern’ American society. After the demolition of slavery, weakening of racism, and the establishment of labor standards, the next victims in line for hungry businesses in need of cheap labor were undocumented immigrants, which gave rise to sweatshops. To clarify, sweatshops are hazardous working places that exploit vulnerable people for wages less than the minimum set by the State and Federal government. While increasing globalization has its benefits, it has played a role in increasing the cheap labor demand as American businesses struggle to compete with the cheap goods from abroad. In other words, the problem of labor and product cost has always been a delicate balance. Due to this, it is no surprise that sweatshops that are currently operating are very reminiscent of sweatshops from two centuries ago. Thanks to the Tenement Museum in New York, we have historical records of the Rogarshevsky family that moved to the United States in 1908 and were employed in a sweatshop where they sat in rows in front of primitive sowing machines for hours on end for low pay (1). However, current sweatshops have to constantly dodge government inspections. According to Ms. Teresa Garcia, a sweatshop worker that was interviewed by the New York Times, “the name on her checks….changed, though she worked in the same grungy factory in the heart of downtown”(2). In other words, current sweatshops change their name, location, and manager frequently to avoid detection by the government and they hire only vulnerable people, in this case, undocumented immigrants who would struggle to file a lawsuit for labor violations. Similarly to Abraham from the Rogarshevsky family, who died of tuberculosis after fifteen years of hard labor pressing garments, many sweatshop workers end up seriously harmed or terminally ill (1). Furthermore, according to Ms. Cortes, another sweatshop worker that the New York Times interviewed, the twelve dollar clothes that she sewed were, “‘very expensive for what they pay us'”(2). The real benefactors of sweatshops are the companies that make serious cash from selling sweatshop merchandise at ‘unbelievable’ prices.

Footnotes:

1.“97 Orchard Street.” Tenement Museum. Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.tenement.org/explore/97-orchard-street/.

2. Kitroeff, Natalie. “Fashion Nova’s Secret: Underpaid Workers in Los Angeles Factories.” The New York Times. The New York Times, December 16, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/business/fashion-nova-underpaid-workers.html.

Three Social Issues

Social Issue #1: Education:

Presently, many professions and jobs have been locked away behind degrees, therefore flaws in the educational system have become more damaging to society. To clarify, for every student that fails to acquire a bachelor’s degree, society loses a professional employee and many opportunities are closed off for that individual. Due to the complex nature of education, there are many aspects of the problem that need to be tackled. For instance, student debt, quality of public education, the effects of race and gender on degree acquisition, and school violence are all issues that are still to be addressed. When it comes to historical background, debates over education and how its various aspects stretch back all the way past the ancient Romans and Greeks. In the Republic, Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, writes that education is the key to reaching a higher state of being that is necessary for anybody entering politics. In other words, education has been a matter of debate for centuries and there is much material and history to explore. By the same token, there is also a rich statistical database provided by the U.S. Department of Education and many other contributors that addresses most of the aforementioned issues with education. 

Social Issue #2: Work:

Being an essential part of every society, work and its related policies are subject to much change and criticism. Ideally, a full-time job should bring some satisfaction to the employee and provide a livable wage. Furthermore, work should provide a safe environment and the right to unionize. However, these aforementioned goals have not yet been achieved in all of the United States. Due to this, skilled workers are unemployed or underemployed and minimum wage workers struggle to survive. Moreover, the sociology professor, Anna Leon-Guerrero, states that, “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017h), there were 5,190 fatal work injuries in 2016” (1). To clarify, some workplaces are still hazardous to employees. Race and gender also play a role in these work issues by making certain individuals more vulnerable to unemployment and lower wages even if the certifications. Any of these work aspects that need improvement can be individually explored extensively. In order to address work issues, it is important to consider how recent events have changed the nature of the workplace. For example, the Industrial Revolution, Great Depression, and World War II have all contributed to major shifts in the demographics of employees and the nature of jobs available. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and many other reliable sources have collected valuable statistical information to aid in understanding the extent and effects of these work issues and the shifts displayed over time.

Social Issue #3: Medicine:

Despite being an essential part of life, healthcare is a major problem worldwide. The most obvious healthcare problems are in developing countries where epidemics commonly breakout and kill hundreds of people before being contained. However, even in developed countries healthcare is still an issue, especially in the United States. According to the sociology professor, Anna Leon-Guerrero, “Even though the U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, ‘comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of [health] performance’ (Davil. 2007:viii)”(1). In other words, the U.S. healthcare system is both overpriced and underperforming, which is a heavy burden on society’s members that now have to struggle to pay their medical bills. Furthermore, the United States’ healthcare system is ranked last for equity, which means that race and gender play a major role in the quality of healthcare a patient receives, and Anna Leon-Guerrero shockingly states that, “there is a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the most and least advantaged populations”(1). Overall, healthcare is a serious issue in most societies and the problems vary between countries. Due to the international scale of the problem, it is important to focus on one piece at a time. Moreover, the recent efforts to reduce healthcare costs in the United States through insurance and other means yields valuable insight into the nature of the problem and the effectiveness of the aforementioned efforts. Statistics concerning various aspects of the issue are provided by The World Health Organization, which provides information about international healthcare problems, and the National Center for Health Statistics, which provides more precise statistical information concerning only the United States.

In the United States, individuals struggle to deal with the overpriced healthcare system. Source: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/05/politics/us-health-care-spending-2018/index.html

Footnotes:

1. Leon-Guerrero, Anna. Social Problems: Community, Policy and Social Action. 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2019.

There Is More To Surveys Than Filling Bubbles

Diversity in the United States has made collecting accurate demographics that can represent the whole United States from a small population a challenging ordeal. As a result, survey making has become a complicated process as writers try to phrase and organize the questions in a manner that will not ruin the validity of the survey by influencing the results. Wording aside, there are many factors that influence the answers of individuals, the most important of which are gender, race, and social class.

While recent changes in the United States have narrowed the gap between men and women in the social structure, gender still has a noticeable impact on the way people experience the world, therefore, changing their answers for the survey. According to the sociology professor, Anna Leon-Guerrero, “there is no society where men and women perform identical functions, nor are they ranked or treated equally” (1). In other words, the persistent gender gap affects the way individuals are treated and the degree to which different problems affect them. For example, working women in 2016 still receive only eighty percent of what their counterpart men were paid. Furthermore, women are still the minority in many career fields and more likely to be victims of sexual assault or relationship violence. As a result, when asked on a survey to rank social problems women might be more inclined to choose the pay gap than men who struggle with different societal problems.

Other influences to survey answers come from race and social class, which are two interconnected social problems. Basically, race is directly connected to housing, schooling, political power, income, and personal values. Furthermore, people of high social class tend to come from cerian races, furthering the divide of opinions between the rich and poor. In other words, the ‘undesired’ races often have different worldviews from the ‘superior’ races since they rarely share the same neighborhoods, public schools, and social classes. Therefore it should come as no surprise that race and social class influence survey answers in matters concerning welfare, housing discrimination, wages, and political opinions. As a matter of fact, race and social class are often targeted as a means of changing survey answers. In the years 1993 to 1994, “Governor Zell Miller….ignited racial tension and racialized the state’s political discourse….[by] shift[ing] his attention from the state flag to welfare reform….[so] Georgia passed….punitive welfare programs” (1). In this instance, race was intentionally used to polarize people’s answers to the welfare question and halt the reform efforts. In essence, race and social class will undoubtedly influence survey answers in a variety of subjects especially if the questions are written in a provoking manner or at a time of racial tension.

Overall, gender, race, and social class definitely impact the world view of individuals and their answers to survey questions, which is why survey takers rarely agree on the answers to the questions asked. However, careful wording and considerate questions can help ease the tension and wield valuable data that could not be collected by qualitative research. Moreover, placing sensitive questions at the end of the survey instead of at the start reduces the influence of those sensitive questions on the rest of the survey.

Footnotes:

1. Leon-Guerrero, Anna. Social Problems: Community, Policy and Social Action. 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2019.

When someone accepts a singular view of any person(s) or thing(s), it puts them at risk of missing complications and belittling the reality of the situation. This summarizes the TED Talk given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a talented Nigerian author, about the danger of a single story. During her speech, Adichie draws from several personal experiences to further her claim that singular facts are blinding. For example, Adichie mentions Fide’s family whose poverty made them seem incapable of crafting beautiful baskets and Adichie’s American college roommate that believed Africans to be a “backward” people dancing to “tribal music” that ought to be pitted. Despite the humiliation that single views have caused, Adichie ends her speech on a hopeful note by stating that, “…stories can also repair that broken dignity” (3). In other words, if more stories with diverse views of the same subject continue to be shared then people will be surprised by how much connects them and how little divides them. One of the most widespread single views is that the country of Egypt is a vast and unpopulated desert filled with ancient tombs, but this could not be further from the truth.

While the more than four thousand years old pyramids are a well-known marvel, some people never learn anything further about Egypt and popular culture rarely mentions that Egypt has not remained a static wasteland since the ancient construction of the pyramids. More often than not, the classical web result for “Egypt” or “Egyptian” are golden sand dunes with a remarkable ancient structure jutting out of the sand. For instance, the classical and iconic image displayed on the right of the three pyramids came from a Wikipedia article. However, what the observer of this beautiful picture might not realize is that the photographer purposefully chose the viewing angle of his camera to give the impression that the pyramids are situated in the middle of the desert.

Photo by Wikipedia (1)

In reality, the pyramids are enclosed in a giant sandbox as the rapidly expanding and modern capital of Egypt, called Cairo, engulfs the formerly barren land. As a matter of fact, the pyramids are so close to the city that Egyptians often joke that the pharaohs are a stone throws away from KFC! In order to show this, the photographer of the picture on the left simply changed the viewing angle. By popularizing only a single story or view of Egypt, many abroad never get to see the full story that Egypt is a modernizing country with ancient roots.

Photo by Wikipedia (1)

In essence, Adichie’s speech is a testimony to the distortion that a single popularized image of a place can bring. Since humans are “…impressionable and variable…in the face of a story, particularly as children,” it is important for a variety of views to be made available to the public to prevent the formation of misconceptions (3). Similar to how Egypt is not just a place of ancient wonders, other places, and people have more to their stories than what have been mainstreamed and it is important for their viewpoints to be shared.

Photo by Nintendo (2)
Video games, movies, and books often have an Egyptian inspired section where the characters explore an ancient pyramid in the middle of a sandy biome

Watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk (3)

Footnotes:

1.“Egyptian Pyramids.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 15, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids.

2.Luigi’s Mansion 3. Version 1.2.1., Nintendo Switch, 2019. Floor 10.

3.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story, 07 October 2009: TED, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg.