Group 12 confers: ???
6:10 - Discussion of Chapter 12
7:30 - Break
7:40 - Instructor-led discussion
Ability and Disability
"Health" as a social construct
The status of pregnancy?
Ailment as master status... is this stigmatizing?
Does society treat disability as abnormal and disabled people as aliens?
What does it mean that "social structures and institutions alienate, marginalize, and often threaten people with disabilities" (207)?
Examined Life with Judith Butler
Impairment vs. disability
(NPR article on inclusive playgrounds: "Play teaches children how to make friends, make rules and navigate relationships. But for kids whose disabilities keep them from using playgrounds, those opportunities can be lost.")
American value of self-reliance...
What is the "social construction of disability" (207)?
What is a "culture of disability" and how does it "resist and subvert the social standards of fitness that alienate and exclude them" (208)? Is this another example of identity politics? Is it important to change our language because people with impairments feel dehumanized?
8:00 ------------
:Body variation and enhancement:
Beauty standards change...
Why are there more muscular Americans, and more fatter Americans, than a generation ago?
Is bodily identity an ascribed or achieved status? (209-10) America vs. Brazil...
What about the value of individual responsibility (and therefore, laying blame on victims) in leading us to an "irrational attitude that we can fend off all risks if we just live right..." (211)?
Class implications (212)?
Stereotypes of sports players?
8:10
:Well and sick bodies:
What is the sick role? (213)
Does labeling theory apply (214)?
Intersectionality: race, class, gender, age, etc...
e.g. why the different rates for men and women of death by:
- accidents?
- AIDS?
- suicide?
- stroke?
Is breast-cancer awareness political? Why?
Here's some info about the controversies surrounding the Susan G. Komen foundation and "pinkwashing."
8:20 -
People With Disabilities
3 domains: communication, mental, physical
36 million Americans (~12%)
What did the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) do?
What are SSI and SSDI? (219)
8:30 - While we're on the subject of health, what does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) or, as it is commonly known, "ObamaCare" do?
First let's talk about health insurance:
According to the U.S.Census Bureau, the proportion of our population that lacks health insurance is at an all time high of about 51 million.
The cost of health insurance has been spiraling out of control for decades, going up ten times faster than wages since 2000.
Meanwhile industry profits ticked up 250% in the same period. This is why the U.S. Congress finally passed a health care reform law in 2010, after more than a decade of discussing it. The criticism of our health care system is that "for-profit" insurance companies have been gaming the system to increase profits by pricing out the poor and the sick, which is bad for society: when poor, struggling workers get sick or injured, they're not going to just crawl under a rock and die - they have a job to do and a family to support, so they're going to head for the emergency room. This kind of care is far more expensive, and since the poor don't have that kind of money, the hospital has to stick the taxpayers with the bill. So we end up paying more money for emergency health care, and this system keeps about 1 in 6 Americans from getting access to basic preventative medicine, which means more minor issues will progress to major problems requiring more of that expensive emergency-room care!
Why would our system do such a thing? The health insurance industry is not easy to understand. The point of insurance in general is to distribute risk through a population, so that individuals are not ruined by unpredictable disasters. You get car insurance or home insurance just in case a rare bad thing happens, and the small amount you pay per month goes to help the small proportion of people who actually have that bad thing happen to them.
Health insurance in particular also serves another function: helping people bear the predictable costs of maintenance and prevention (check-ups and medicine to cure minor illnesses before they lead to major social disruptions).
Both of these are socially useful functions – they keep people productive, and that keeps society running smoothly. But in an industry of private health insurance, companies must make a profit. Profit-making is their purpose. In order to do that, they use society's demand for the above functions to raise the price at which they can sell their supply of services. But their fundamental purpose is not to distribute risk, nor to help people maintain their health – it is to make profits. If they are not distributing risk optimally, and they are not helping people maintain their health in the best way, but they are still making profits for their shareholders, then they are still fulfilling their raison d'etre. For decades, the “free market” has been rewarding them for sub-optimal service, so it doesn't make sense to say they "failed," exactly. What proponents of ObamaCare say does make sense is to change the rules of the game, to give them motivation to actually provide socially useful services, and that is what the health reform law is meant to do.
OK so what DOES the law actually do? Well it's a bit complicated, but basically something like this...
Mental health?
Diversity in sickness and in health?
FOR NEXT TIME:
8:20 -
People With Disabilities
3 domains: communication, mental, physical
36 million Americans (~12%)
What did the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) do?
What are SSI and SSDI? (219)
8:30 - While we're on the subject of health, what does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) or, as it is commonly known, "ObamaCare" do?
First let's talk about health insurance:
According to the U.S.Census Bureau, the proportion of our population that lacks health insurance is at an all time high of about 51 million.
The cost of health insurance has been spiraling out of control for decades, going up ten times faster than wages since 2000.
Meanwhile industry profits ticked up 250% in the same period. This is why the U.S. Congress finally passed a health care reform law in 2010, after more than a decade of discussing it. The criticism of our health care system is that "for-profit" insurance companies have been gaming the system to increase profits by pricing out the poor and the sick, which is bad for society: when poor, struggling workers get sick or injured, they're not going to just crawl under a rock and die - they have a job to do and a family to support, so they're going to head for the emergency room. This kind of care is far more expensive, and since the poor don't have that kind of money, the hospital has to stick the taxpayers with the bill. So we end up paying more money for emergency health care, and this system keeps about 1 in 6 Americans from getting access to basic preventative medicine, which means more minor issues will progress to major problems requiring more of that expensive emergency-room care!
Why would our system do such a thing? The health insurance industry is not easy to understand. The point of insurance in general is to distribute risk through a population, so that individuals are not ruined by unpredictable disasters. You get car insurance or home insurance just in case a rare bad thing happens, and the small amount you pay per month goes to help the small proportion of people who actually have that bad thing happen to them.
Health insurance in particular also serves another function: helping people bear the predictable costs of maintenance and prevention (check-ups and medicine to cure minor illnesses before they lead to major social disruptions).
Both of these are socially useful functions – they keep people productive, and that keeps society running smoothly. But in an industry of private health insurance, companies must make a profit. Profit-making is their purpose. In order to do that, they use society's demand for the above functions to raise the price at which they can sell their supply of services. But their fundamental purpose is not to distribute risk, nor to help people maintain their health – it is to make profits. If they are not distributing risk optimally, and they are not helping people maintain their health in the best way, but they are still making profits for their shareholders, then they are still fulfilling their raison d'etre. For decades, the “free market” has been rewarding them for sub-optimal service, so it doesn't make sense to say they "failed," exactly. What proponents of ObamaCare say does make sense is to change the rules of the game, to give them motivation to actually provide socially useful services, and that is what the health reform law is meant to do.
OK so what DOES the law actually do? Well it's a bit complicated, but basically something like this...
Mental health?
Diversity in sickness and in health?
FOR NEXT TIME:
- Read Chapter 13: Class, and prepare your Daily Top 5 list
- ONLY: ??? - prepare to facilitate a discussion on Chapter 13
- Reminder - 3 days until the Career Article Critique paper is due...
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