Throughout my civic issue blogposts, I have talked about different issues surrounding healthcare. In this post I will wrap up this thread by talking about what I have learned by doing these blog posts and my persuasive issue on a related topic.

The first thing I learned about healthcare is how greatly the United States differs from other countries in our system of healthcare coverage. In operating on a fully private insurance system, we differ from almost all countries, including Canada and Switzerland. I also learned just how many millions of Americans are uninsured compared to citizens of other countries, and how these two things may be relatable.

I’ve also realized how contestable this issue. To me, the fact that everyone should have access to healthcare without going into debt doesn’t even cross my mind as debatable. However, apparently many people feel that they work hard to pay for their healthcare insurance and that it should not be offered up to those who can’t afford it. This also goes for disparities in quality of healthcare. Because bias can be so implicit, many people don’t see a problem within our healthcare system.

Healthcare is a vast issue. Not only is accessibility of healthcare and insurance a huge issue, but quality of care for minorities is extremely poor. I knew this was a problem, but I didn’t realize how many areas of healthcare it spanned. People of color were almost twice as likely to contract and be hospitalized from COVID as white people. Black Americans, also, were hardly given any access to COVID tests and other resources.

Mental health of minority people is a problem that is not being addressed. This is due to many factors, including stigma both in minority communities and outside of them, barriers to healthcare including insurance, disabilities, and a lack of mental health providers who are educated in cultural differences. One fact that really stuck out to me is that suicide is the leading cause of death in young teen Native American girls.

Healthcare is a complicated and confusing issue. With a country that is so deeply bipartisan about issues like this, it is very unlikely that we well find a solution everyone can agree on it. It is very difficult to address problems like racial disparity because a lot of it likes in personal bias. That being said, after doing this research, I really believe that we need more minority person medical providers and medical studies done on people of color. To accomplish this, we need to attack the issue of system racism and offer more educational and other positive opportunities to poverty areas.

There is a lot to be said about the issue of healthcare and so many niche corners of the topic that I could not touch on but I hope to continue to become more educated about the issue.

Throughout this whole year, I’ve used my blog posts to talk about my favorite artists and music. Today I will be wrapping up this thread by talking about one of my all-time favorite songs and what music means to me.

I did a whole post on Frank Ocean and what a great artist he is. “Nights” is one of my most played, favorite songs ever. “Nights” is mesmerizing, definitely one of those songs that will put you in your feelings, but in a good way. If I had to describe this song in one word it would be “nostalgia”. Hence, these lyrics:

“Why your eyes well up?
Did you call me from a séance?
You are from my past life
Hope you’re doin’ well, bruh”

If you’ve gone through any kind of personal transition where you feel like you’ve lost some friends or grown out of a relationship, this song will definitely resonate with you. Especially as a college student who feels like I’ve sort of outgrown my highschool friends and lost touch with people and changed a lot as a person, this song hits hard. To me, it’s basically the perfect song (along with basically all Frank Ocean songs).

Music is the thing that keeps me company when I’m home alone or doing homework or walking to class or driving to work. It’s the first thing my boyfriend and I bonded over and for us, “here’s a song I found that I think you would like” is another way to say “I love you”. It gets me in the mood to go to the gym. Music gets my friends hyped up to go out and being on aux for them while getting ready is one of my favorite things ever. If the music at a party isn’t good, I’m not staying. Listening to my favorite songs with my friends in the car with the windows down is an absolutely unbeatable feeling. Music is fun!!

I think music also has the power to make me think, or feel not so alone when I’m upset. I definitely have songs that I reach for when I want to stew in my feelings or cry.

Certain songs are associated with different periods of time or people. “By and By” and “Rivers and Roads” will forever be associated with the summer before I left for college. “Topanga” is the fall of my sophomore year of high school. “Thrift Shopping” is driving around with my high school friends as soon as we got our driver’s licenses. “Best Day Ever” is saying goodbye to my boyfriend when he would leave to go back to college after visiting.

Music brings us together and it makes life more fun. I love music and I can’t wait to find more new favorite songs!

For my advocacy project I plan on talking about the mental health benefits that come from exercise and the correlation between mental health and physical well-being. For me personally, I had a hard time staying consistent with going to the gym when I was focused on how it would affect my appearance because it made the gym a negative experience for me. However, when I started focusing on the endorphins I got from exercising and how beneficial it was for me mentally, it became something I really want to do every day. Not only that, but being physically stronger and more-in shape correlates to better mental health, self9mage, and confidence.

For this project I would be encouraging people to take the specific action of bettering their physical and mental health through exercise. This can be done a lot of different ways, like following a workout plan, finding a fitness educator to look up to, or picking a time of day that is most beneficial for you to go and sticking to it. There are endless different ways to exercise, from weight lifting to long walks to cycling classes to yoga. The first step to take is to go once, and set a goal for yourself.

As an audience, I think this is most important for people our age to hear because so many people are experiencing mental health issues and burn-out from school. I think it’s important for everyone to take the time out of your day to make yourself feel a little better. It’s easy to convince yourself you don’t have time or that it’s not important enough to make the time to do, but it has improved my mood so much that I want others who may be struggling to try it as a way of improving their mood.

There are a lot of benefits to working out. People our age definitely value physical appearance/fitness. In addition to that, thought, most of us also value a positive mindset and good mental health, as well as a sense of personal accomplishment.

https://www.priestsforlife.org/pregnant-need-help/index.aspx

The website that I found to analyze is Priests for Life: Activating the Church to End Abortion. Immediately when I clicked on the website I could tell it would be questionable. It looks like a website that they would show as an example of one not to use as a reputable source. It’s a lot to look at with all the buttons, arrows, pictures, and words jumping out at you.

The website has many calls to action. It invites you to donate to Priests for Life, contact your senators to prevent Judge Jackson from being confirmed, complain to Citigroup, join them for mass, pray, and watch their Father Frank’s daily diary.

Their primary argument seems to be an appeal to emotion, or, as I see it, fear-mongering. Their home page shows a link that says “Show the American people what an abortion is: click here to see images of aborted babies.” Then, there is a link to a page on the website that says “Pregnant? Need Help?”. One would think that this would be a list of resources for pregnant women. There is one link, not the first one, for finding a Pregnancy Resource Center. However, first links are videos – “What does your child look like?” “How do abortions affect women?” and a link that just says “UNSAFE”, claiming that abortions are dirty and dangerous.

These are all clearly an attempt to prey on the emotions of a newly pregnant woman who is already scared and unsure of what to do. However, I think that by providing links and arguments that are not sound, they make themselves look bad.

The website also uses logic to make specific points. For example, they encourage their supporters to donate to the cause of opposing Judge Jackson’s confirmation or to call their senators. They say that Judge Jackson wants to provide legal protection to those who perform late-term abortions, and say that their donations and phone calls are necessary to prevent this “tragedy”.

They do the same to bash the bank Citigroup for offering to pay for travel expenses for employees who must go out of state to get an abortion. They make them look bad by taking a quote from the CEO saying doing this provides a “competitive edge” and then questioning how that compares to “a beating heart”. Their arguments in both cases have little evidence.

Finally, they rely on the information from other’s testimonials. This could have potential if the testimonials did not appear to be so devoid of fact.

Overall, this website appears sketchy and has a lack of solid logic.

The quality of healthcare given to people of color is unequal and unjust.

For my persuasive essay, I will be looking at the issue of racial disparities in healthcare. This is a multifaceted issue, but I primarily plan to focus on how the COVID pandemic exacerbated this issue and the urgency of reform.

People of color were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This is a part of this issue that especially interests and upsets me. People of color faced much higher infection and death rates and this is something that I believe could have been prevented.

The book that I found is “Racial and Ethnics Disparities in Health and Healthcare”, edited by Elene Metrosa. This book will be a useful source because it offers a collection of essays touching on different topics such as pain outcomes, hospital admissions, and mental health disparities.

It is possible to achieve universal healthcare because we have seen it in other countries. The US’s system is fragmented and broken because we rely on private insurers, and too many people fall through the cracks and don’t receive any care at all.

A few guiding research questions I have are:

Why were people of color infected by COVID at a higher rate?

What percentage of people of color do not have health insurance, and to what extent is this a systemic issue?

How have some other countries improved this issue, and what can we do to reform our healthcare system?

Over 27 million Americans do not have healthcare today. Even with insurance, our healthcare systems are so expensive that a visit to the hospital has caused too many Americans to go into debt or even bankruptcy.

One thing that really awakened me to this issue was talking to a THON family who told us that without Four Diamonds, they would have been looking at a hospital bill of over 1 million dollars from just over one year of hospital visits. Although this made me glad to be apart of an organization that could help this family, other families who don’t have an opportunity like that are struggling all over the country.

As discussed in a previous post, the US operates on a system of private insurance and is often treated as a market. There is healthcare for elderly people, people in poverty, veterans, employees of certain companies, or people who purchase it through a private company. If our insurance system is a market, it is a greatly fragmented market. It needs to be changed so that everyone can afford insurance, and no one goes broke from a trip to the emergency room.

So how can we fix our failing healthcare system?

This is a confusing issue. People disagree on whether the problem lies within the insurance institutions, the costs of health care, and how “costs” are defined and what the problem actually is. According to The Harvard Business Review, “the remedy to the cost crisis does not require medical science breakthroughs or new governmental regulation. It simply requires a new way to accurately measure costs and compare them with outcomes.”

Overall, the general consensus to reduce costs is to stop with hidden/surprise charges, correctly allocate hospital overhead costs, address the deficiency in tracking systems to account for total cost of resources, and other things along that line.

The steps to make health insurance available to everyone involve developing a mandate and legal framework, and, among other things, developing a view that is equity centered – the focus should not be on the high-income groups that will make them money, but on ensuring that everyone can get healthcare. A mandate by the head of state will allow the necessary funds to be allocated.

Other countries have different forms of healthcare. By regulating private companies and having a system of insurance that is primarily public, these other countries have been able to achieve universal health coverage.

Although this issue is confusing and extremely multifaceted, I believe that the extra effort and funds are worthwhile and undoubtedly necessary to see more equality in our country.

https://news.gsu.edu/research-magazine/can-americas-healthcare-crisis-be-solved

https://hbr.org/2011/09/how-to-solve-the-cost-crisis-in-health-care

I’m one of those people that will say I like all music except for country, but I do have a few songs that are exceptions to that rule, even if they’re not super country. I asked my best friend who loves country music if these count and she said “kind of”. The two songs are “Lady May” by Tyler Childers and “Heart Attack” by Wild Rivers. Both Tyler Childers and Wild Rivers are said to combine folk, country, and pop. So even if they don’t count as country to some, they’re probably as close as I’ll get to it.

“Lady May” was written by Tyler for his wife. It’s a very intimate song about love and having someone to walk through life with, and it paints a picture of two people meeting in their mountain home at the end of a long day.

“Put your toes down in the water
And a smile across your face
And tell me that you love me
Lovely Lady May….

Now the mountains all are blushin’
And they don’t know what to say
‘Cept a good long line of praises
For my lovely Lady May..”

It’s a beautiful and well written song. He has said in interviews that he writes love songs for his wife often, and most of his songs are just his way of storytelling. I think he is a great storyteller and an earnest face in the music industry that we don’t see much anymore.

Another love song, “Heart Attack” is a super earnest and emotion-packed song that’s about someone who’s beauty or persona leaves you feeling like you just had a heart attack. The male and female voices artists blend together beautifully and creates the most perfect bluesy, country-y love song.

“Oh my, you just gotta take a piece of me
Try to tease out the other side
Cause darlin’ I just see you’ve been so sweet to me
I’ve been waiting on the day all night
Would it kill you for some peace of mind?
Would you take me and not look back?
Good gracious, you’re a heart attack.”

Both of these songs are some of my favorites, even if its a genre I don’t normally pay a lot of attention to , because I do love a love song and I really enjoy that you can truly hear the passion in the artist’s voice. In “Lady May”, I especially enjoy knowing that it’s a real love song for his wife. Tyler Childers is an artist that I would really recommend checking out, whether or not you’re really into country – honorable mention goes to another fantastic song, “Feathered Indians”. The lyrics to “Feathered Indians” show a great love – “But up ’til now, there ain’t been nothing/That I couldn’t leave behind”. Check out these great songs!

There is definitely a lot of discourse surrounding representation in TV and film. Are there enough women? Are there enough people of color? Disabled people? Body types? There are countless perspectives to consider. I think that most people hold the general opinion that we have seen vast improvement since the start of media, but there is definitely room for improvement.

The NPR article that I found cites a study by the Nielson company that claims representation on TV is not reflective of the diversity of real life. They found that women, Native American people, and Latinx people are the most underrepresented groups in television and film. For example, women, and especially women over 50, are not on screen anywhere close to the same amount that they are present in society. Native American people are only shown on screen .4% of the time. These statistics reflect the idea that representation has increased but is still not where it should be.

The second article questions not just percentage of representation, but the quality of it. A lot of people may disagree with a lack of representation, saying they see minority groups represented in media all the time. What this article brings to light is misrepresentation, “under the guise of creating diversity”. Tokenism, for example the gay best friend in a movie who is simply a symbolic stab at diversity, and stereotyping/typecasting do not actually count towards diversity. For example, casting an Arabic man as a terrorist is not beneficial to underrepresented groups.

Why is this important? Representation in TV and film that goes that is actually quality representation can be key in breaking down harmful stereotypes. It can open up opportunities to minority people. More than anything, it is important to consider how we are affecting people of a certain group by the type of representation, or lack thereof, shown of them in media. I believe what we see in our media greatly affects the young people of our society as to their dreams for the future. It is important that we show people the possibility of doing anything.

I think the shows that I watch are pretty diverse, at least for more recent ones. I definitely notice a difference in shows that were made in the ’90s or early 2000s compared to ones made in recent years as far as diversity. One of my favorite shows is Jane the Virgin which has a lot of diversity, and they speak in Spanish a lot and show a lot of different culture. I think that all the shows I watch have good representation of strong female characters because I wouldn’t watch a show that made me feel badly by showing women as weak or stupid.

Overall, I really agree with the content of these articles and the need to really consider the quality of the representation we’re seeing. Some questions to consider are:

To what extent should a “token” character actually be considered representation?

How do your viewing habits reflect how you feel about yourself?

1- https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/942574850/more-evidence-tv-doesnt-reflect-real-life-diversity

2-

What Exactly is Media Representation Anyway?

When I first read this prompt, the first thing I thought of was all the TikToks I see on a daily basis about the popular show Euphoria, and the comments on those videos arguing about different opinions about characters, theories, and more. I was struggling to find a good example to link so instead I will be talking about the comment section on an Entertainment Weekly article about this past week’s episode. I really like Euphoria and I enjoy watching it and talking about it with my friends, but I’ve found people on the internet take it waaaayyyy too seriously and personally.

Most comment sections I see, including this one, at best could be considered a conversation and more accurately could be called a debate. In many instances, I see comments that are arguing about different theories and showing little respect for the ideas of people, responding with things like “did you even watch the episode?” or “if you like this character you’re a horrible person like them”. In this particular example, one commenter even has to remind another that this isn’t a personal attack against them, just an opinion about fictional characters on a fictional TV show. I believe that the primary reason that this could not be considered a deliberation is because there is little to no respect for the opinions of others.

Deliberation offers facts and people being receptive to the information shared. In this case, there is not verified information being shared, but speculation. Another reason I don’t think a comment section such as this one is deliberative is that most people are not trying to expand their mindset, but to convince others to agree with them. They are not willing to consider that their own opinion on it could be broadened or even changed completely. They are also not considerate of the other people’s feelings or anything that may have happened to them to lead them to this perspective.

Comment sections like this one are often much more akin to a debate. Commenters are looking for weaknesses in other’s comments to use as opportunity to boost their own opinion. There is widespread critique and no consideration for feelings. They are searching for one “solution”- a firm opinion about a character or for everyone to agree on a theory. Commenters want to win, and they think everyone who disagrees with them is wrong.

Overall, I think there are times where debate is necessary, and a comment section of an article about an HBO series for young adults doesn’t really seem to be one of these times. I think a lot of people need to take the one commentor’s advice to heart and remember that it’s just TV!

ARTICLE: https://ew.com/tv/euphoria-star-zendaya-breaks-down-rue-painful-intervention/

Original comment: “I love Euphoria but Rue is my least favorite character. To me, she’s unlikable with no redeeming qualities. Yes, I know she’s a drug attic and we should be hoping for her recovery, but are we really? Everyone in her life would be better off if she were dead, they could grieve, heal and move forward with their lives. This being said, can’t wait for next weeks episode.”

Replies:

“I feel the same way…..Rue is just super unappealing, and I don’t find myself sympathizing with her at all. When her story is on, I find myself losing interest, and start hoping for one of the other storylines to come on instead. Can’t stand Nate either, so I’d be fine with Rue and Nate leaving the show.”

“Rue is the main character of the show. She is not going anywhere. Zendaya is the star of the show and her performance is brilliant. There is no comparison whatsoever between her and Nate. Nate is an evil character who deliberately hurts people. Rue is a sick person,(apparently based on the creator of the show’s real experiences as an addict), who has serious psychological problems and needs help. She is more of a threat to herself than to others.”

“Dan, get a grip! This wasn’t a personal attack against you. This was a viewer’s opinion about fictional characters on a fictional tv show.”

What is healthcare currently like in the United States compared to the rest of the world? When weighing the pros and cons of free and universal healthcare, it is worthwhile to consider where in the world we see it and it’s success or failure. There are three types of healthcare:

1. Socialized medicine, in which all hospitals and healthcare workers are owned and employed by the government. This is what we see in the UK.
2. Single-payer system, where hospitals are still private businesses but the government provides healthcare for all. This is what we see in Canada.
3. Private Insurance, where it is mandated that everyone purchase some type of healthcare, including from private insurance company. This is what we see in Switzerland as well as what the Affordable Care Act in the United States was a pass at.

Countries all over the world attempt to have universal coverage. In North America, Central America, and Europe the following countries have healthcare:

The Bahamas, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Additional countries in Africa, South America, Asia, as well as New Zealand and Australia are included. This makes it clear that the vast majority of developed countries want to offer universal healthcare, with different options that we discussed. Currently, the United States employs private insurance, but certainly does not have universal coverage. Private insurance is the most expensive option for people.

Like I said, the US has a private healthcare system. We also have Medicare and Medicaid as tools of the government. Former President Obama implemented the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which did greatly increase the number of Americans with healthcare by providing a government subsidy and keeping insurance practices from denying or overcharging those with health conditions, but it is still far from universal. Many Americans still do not have health insurance and are suffering because of it. Why is this?

Many people are resistant to the idea of free healthcare. They may worry that it may increase their taxes, or have a negative impact on the quality of their own healthcare. People also debate about the effect it would have on the nation’s economy. However, the Affordable Care Act did not greatly increase the nation’s spendings, but it did allow over 20 million Americans to have access to healthcare. The ACA was cracked down on by the administration in 2020, and public fear of changes makes a public healthcare system unlikely. Our government system makes it very difficult to impose large changes, but many are focused on finding a way to allow every American affordable access to healthcare. Even the ACA was not perfect and left many uninsured; we still have a lot of work to do.

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-universal-health-care#what-are-the-disadvantages-of-universal-health-care