SOC Blog 490 Week 6

This week for our SOC 490 class we interviewed Italians about their healthcare system. We went to some type of large market, with a university nearby. Professor told us that the easiest place to get interviews was in the bar are. So, without a second thought, I went to the bar. We had well over an hour to get our required ten Italian interviews completed; I was done in ten minutes. My only thought was "man that was easy!" Many other students were frustrated with me because some of the people they asked said they already filled it out, so I felt kind of bad for that.

Some people believe that it is possible to cure disease through prayer. I would like to bring up one of our group discussions from our GL 350 course that can be applied to this theme. We once discussed that Italians believe their faith is set in stone. The example we used in class was regarding the war the Italians lost years and years ago. Before the fight even began, the Italians "knew" they were going to lose; no thought of prayer could help. So, applying this theme to the theme of curing disease through prayer, simply means that it can not be done. Our future is already set, and nothing can change our fate. So if we do by chance become diagnosed with some sort of disease, it can not be cured through prayer.

One idea that really caught my attention was the sheet of statistics professor handed out in class. The sheet contained stats such as under-5 mortality rate, infant mortality rate, and life expectancy. The USA was behind both Canada and Italy in all major health care statistics. Italy and Canada both have universal health care. Why are we so far behind? It is our system itself? Is it the citizens that reside in our country? Massachusetts already has a universal health care system for its state; ironically it was established by governor Mitt Romney. But Massachusetts has no complaints towards the system, so why not spread it across the entire nation? These are questions I hope to find answers to in my research for my final paper.

In Atul Gawande's essay "The United States Can Achieve Universal Health Care Without Dismantling the Existing Health Care Sytem," he brings up the universal health care system in Massachusetts. He makes reference to many patients that have some sort of condition and refuse to go to the doctor because of the prices. One lady chose to have a mid-wife deliver her baby rather than going to the hospital. The procedure did not go well and she was forced to be rushed to the hospital and the cost was double of what it would have originally been. However, I believe that Gawande somewhat contradicts himself in this comparison. This is the exact issue with people who do not have insurance; they are scared to go to the doctor because of the prices, yet they do not want to pay for the insurance. The part of his essay that I thought was brilliant was the part where he spoke about the universal health care in Massachusetts. He claims that they have no issue in Massachusetts like the previous example I stated. So why wait any longer? Especially since it has been showing positives effects in one of our fifty states.