Soc 490 week cinque

The good old debate of Healthcare

            Your health, is it something in our hands or in the hands of God or whoever a person might believe in? Can we control it? Well, this question about our health being something we can or cannot control will always be an open ended question. For me I still believe that your health is something you can and cannot control because there are certain factors about health that you can control and cannot control. Also everyone’s definition of health or good health is different; everyone has different opinions and views. In our assigned readings throughout the weeks, I have not really came across the subject of controlling your health or that topic in general just healthcare, expense of healthcare and insurance or if healthcare is a right or a privilege.

            In our readings in “Gaudium” several things throughout the pages caught my attention. On page 79 there were two small passages, “to bring about a politico-juridical order which will give better protection to the rights of the person in public life” and “there is wider cooperation to guarantee the actual exercise of personal rights to all citizens and not only to a few privileged individuals.” These two passages immediately made me think of President Obama and what he is trying to do with Universal healthcare, making sure everyone has the same rights and exercising people’s rights equally. But, the world is not a fair place and everyone is not treated equal, it is a hard solid fact. Obama is pushing for healthcare being a right, which is something “Gaudium” or “the pastoral constitution of the Catholic church” is for. There were two other interesting passages and they were on page 85, “and also to pass moral judgment in those matters which regard public order when fundamental rights of a person or the salvation of souls require it.”, “While faithfully adhering to the Gospel and fulfilling her mission to the world, the Church, whose duty it is to foster and elevate all that is found to be true, good and beautiful in the human community, strengthens peace among men for the glory of God.” So as I was reading the first passage I relate it to the church being the final judge on healthcare being a right or a privilege and well “Gaudium” points to it being a right and with the second reading, well I just thought it was a very interesting sentence about the church in general.

            As for the other readings we were assigned in the “Universal Health care” book, well I ended up being frustrated about the whole thing. For the past six years of school high school and college, it has been drilled into my head about always having sources cited as to where information comes from. Well, this book and none of the authors have said citations! How do I know that their information is credible or let us discuss that none of the statistics or facts are from the year 2010 and up. How is data about the uninsured or poor from 2006 and 2007 relevant to todays? The job rate, economy and number of uninsured fluctuate with just a day, let alone a couple of years. There have been several authors on both sides having excellent points that capture my attention and sometimes sway my opinion but then I realize “where are the sources and oh, this information about the unemployment rate is from 2007!” It is an informative book and good at weighing the pros and cons but where are the citations.

            Now, for the assigned readings for the universal book, I accidently read an extra article not in the assigned reading, but it was interesting more specifically a passage about a pregnant woman. In Atul Gawande’s article he uses a story about this pregnant woman from Ohio. Starla is due for delivery and she received a letter that her work was going out of business and she was going to lose her health insurance. The bill for the delivery was going to be $9,000 without insurance and with her husband being unemployed it would be difficult to pay. So she talked her midwife into inducing labor, so insurance would be able to cover the charge well, this did not work out in their favor, she had a difficult delivery and problems, that ended up costing them $17,000 dollars which insurance did not cover. This not only made me furious that a mother would do this because the dangers of this were, in my opinion, outweighing the cost of just delivering when she was suppose to but the fact that her midwife agreed is just poor taste and a horrible decision to make. I was appalled, she not only put the baby in danger but also herself and in the end she had to pay double and go through a more difficult labor.

            On the discussion of healthcare being a right or a privilege, we have discussed back and forth about our own views. In “Gaudium” there was a quote that made me think a little more in depth about the subject. On page 82 “Citizens must cultivate a generous and loyal spirit of patriotism but without being narrow-minded.” Maybe those who think healthcare being a privilege, including myself are being close-minded? Not thinking what is best for the whole country and not having faith in our leaders of America but only thinking about our views we are raised with and developed from where we grew up from or the little of the world we have seen around us. I always try to keep an opened mind about things but I feel that I have been looking at healthcare close-minded, not thinking about America as a whole but only a small group of citizens, a very small group. I will be pondering more about this little quote trying to be open-minded about healthcare because to be patriotic you have to be for the whole country, like the soldiers overseas fighting for our freedom, they are not fighting for the freedom of one small part of the country but for the whole country  of the United States.