Questions for Class Thursday 10/18/2011 Uninsured in America: 1.

. What do you think about the authors argument that the US healthcare system is creating a social caste? State the main points of their argument and then explain what you think about this. I agree with the author. Lower income families cannot provide health care. Marion, a bus driver with no health coverage and they wouldnt except workmans comp. Steve has a chronic disease and workmans comp. wont cover him. 2. What are the health and illness repercussions of domestic violence for abused women and their children? Efforts of leaving a marriage where you are abused comes with very bad economic deprivation. It could take away health insurance. The family would have to go without dental work and they cant afford to go to counseling that they need for the abuse. 3. Workplace injuries and illnesses and the insurance (workers compensation) system: a. List ten aspects of the workers compensation system that benefit the insurance companies 1. If you dont have health care, you have to suck it up. 2. Workmans comp. covers only one time for injury 3. The Insurance companies set up problems for the injured person by trying to say that they had a previous condition. They try to wear them down by letting a lot of time go by with paper work to argue their case. 4. The insurance companies have the money to keep arguing their case to not pay for workmans comp. and the injured person has to focus on the support of their families and doesnt have that kind of money or time to waste. 5. The Insurance companies argue that the injured persons injury is a chronic condition. 6. With Workmans comp. it takes away the workers right to go into the judicial system and so they have to fight it out with the insurance company. 7. If Injuries dont get recorded and so the insurance company doesnt pay. 8. 9. The insurance company gives all money at once and then no more money. The workers receive lack of quality of care.

10. The insurance companies have a team of professionals working to make it harder for the injured person not to get paid. They dont want to pay out big sums of money, they want to make money for themselves, not help the injured.

b. List ten aspects of that system that harm workers or make it difficult for doctors to treat workers 1. Physicians have so much paper work that they have to deal with workmans comp., that it is sometimes not worth the money for them to pay their staff all the hours that is required for them to do the paper work. Not all workers have workmans comp. and so the doctors cannot get paid for all work related injuries. Workers cannot afford to pay doctors out of pocket when they do not have health insurance. The coverage that workers receive for the actual injury is not enough to cover the doctors expenses. Workers can get fired for filing workmans comp. and so the doctors are left picking up the expense of their injury if their job cuts off the benefits.

c. List some social determinants of workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities All of the bad conditions of bad worksites make it difficult for the emotional, mental and physical help of the person. The lack of education of people makes it so that they have to take jobs that require the heavy lifting and high injuries on the job resulting in fatalities and injuries. 4. From the stories, explain the primary problems that our healthcare system creates for the self-employed, small business owners, and American entrepreneurs. The healthcare system creates problems because small business owners have to have rates of insurance for each of their employees. The premiums are very high because the injury rate for a lot of small business owners can be high. The healthcare system favors the high income people because the low income people that are self-employed can not afford to feed their families and pay for health care. 5. From the discussions presented in chapters 5 and 6, write a short paragraph of your opinion of the kind of health insurance/healthcare system that might remedy these problems. I dont think that across the board everyone needs universal health care, but we definitely need to help those that are poor, injured, with chronic disease, small business owners and those that are injured on the job. Just like with the qualifications for Medicaid, Medicare and other government assisted programs, we need to better assist those in this country with health care which could include dental care as well. With the billions of dollars that we spend on other countries and our defense fund, we need to have more compassion on those in this country who are suffering without healthcare.