Vaccine or Flu?

So this may seem like a pointless post but it was something that was recently on my mind and that is flu vaccines. I had done a good job of avoiding getting mine because I hate shots but over break my mom dragged me to CVS to get one stating it was better to get the vaccine then to get the flu. While there I found out the vaccine was not covered under my insurance so it was a thirty dollar cost. I am sure that to some people, including me as a college student, thirty dollars is expensive for a shot but then I thought of the other side-getting the flu and possibly ending up in the hospital-that would cost a lot more than thirty dollars. Also there are places people can go to get the shot for free if they are willing to do some research and possibly wait a while. The flu is no laughing matter and a lot of times people end up in the hospital with it, and this can be avoided.
For people that don't have insurance I think they should be the first ones in line for the vaccines. When it comes to accidents or pre-existing conditions sometimes a trip to the hospital can't be helped but when it comes to getting the flu that can be prevented and with the high hospital costs I am sure they also want to prevent it. So sure getting shots stinks, and it makes your arm sore the next day but it is still way better then the alternative of getting the flu.

Go Get Your Flu Shot!! :)

Will Republican victory mean a loss for health care reform?

Following the mid-term election results that took place on Tuesday November, 2nd the Republican's victory caused a lot of stir about which direction the state will now go in. According the The Monkey Cage  the two main things they will be focusing on is keeping Obama from getting elected for a second term and repealing the healthcare reform that he has started to put into motion. This to me seems like a step backwards. How can our country makes strides if changes can be repealed as soon as a different party takes control? Also something interesting about this article was that it showed that just because Republicans generally are more against health care reform that does not mean repealing it is going to be a winning issue for them. Rather it seems that the majority of the republican population supports bits and pieces of the bill and would be unhappy with repealing it in its entirety but want parts of it to be taken out. A large majority support the parts of the bill that includes providing more financial support for people to purchase health insurance, keeping the increased Medicare payroll tax, and keeping the coverage for pre-existing conditions (thanks Republicans I appreciate the support :) ), the only thing that the majority of them want is for the mandate to purchase health care to be taken out.
This won't be a simple issue for the Republicans in office to put into action however, because obviously insurance companies are a fan of the mandate so if the Republicans only fight to take out the health care mandate they will be making an enemy of insurance companies. The leaders are going to have to walk a tight rope when choosing what action they want to take against health care. Either decision is going to upset some people. What do you think should be done?

Rise in Smoking-Should Health Care Cover This

Hey everyone! 
So I know I usually post on Sunday but I wanted to get a head start this weekend plus I had an idea about a topic. I am not a smoker and never have been. My mom's dad died when she was 11 from lung cancer so she always made it clear to me and my sisters that if she ever found out we smoked she would kill us faster then the cancer could. Lately though I have noticed that I am becoming the minority in my friends that don't smoke. More and more of them are lighting up to deal with stress, because they are drinking 'and only smoke when they drink', or just because it started out of habit and became an addiction. It seems that everywhere I go on campus students are smoking, do they not realize the consequences they could be causing to their lungs? I found an article that showed that one third of college students are smoking. The percentage of smoking teens is up from 28% in 1997 to 33% today. Although this is not a drastic increase it does show that the amount of teens smoking is going up. 
The reason I thought to post about this is because earlier I blogged about if things like eating disorders should be covered and now I am wondering if insurance companies should be required to cover the medical expenses people get from smoking. I mean the cigarette companies explain on each pack that smoking leads to cancer so when people decide to light up shouldn't they take responsibility for the consequences? I mean it doesn't seem fair that companies could not cover someone born with a disease they did nothing to cause but will cover chemo treatments for people who decided to smoke a pack a day. I do know that some employers require that their employees don't smoke as a way to help with their insurance prices, but like I said it doesn't seem fair that people with chronic diseases they have had since birth, or did nothing to deserve have to pay a higher price then people who may have caused their problems. What do you think? 

Election Day Poll

On Tuesday November 2nd 2010 my Public Opinion class carried out an Election Day Poll that we had created in class. This was a really great experience to be a part of the political process and hand out the poll to varies people on campus. I gave 10 people the poll and our class had a total of 212 people take the poll which is great. In terms of my topic health care question 17 asked people their opinion about health care reform. The results were that 26 strong favored it, 62 favored it, 42 opposed it, 23 strongly opposed it, 31 had no opinion, and 27 were unsure. This just reminded me again that health care reform is such a split topic. Some else I noticed from the results was that when it came to the open ended questions most people left the space blank. We discussed in class that it is important to have open ended questions so that people don't feel like they are limited in their options, but what is the point if people are just going to leave it blank? How do you think you can create open ended questions that people actually answer? Is it just that people taking polls are just lazy or do they actually have no opinion? Let me know what you think.

Comparison of Health Care

Hey Everyone!
Hope you all had a fun Halloween weekend.
For this blog I wanted to discuss some of my findings when I compared the United States health care system with that of Germany and England. America is the only developed country without universal health care which I thought was interesting so I wanted to look into the other countries systems. Germany is known for having one of the best health care systems, because everyone is covered as well as having good quality but the downfall is that this system is expensive and will eventually not be able to persist. England on the other hand also covers everyone however the system has it faults in that it takes a long time to receive treatment as well as the quality of care is not as great. America does not cover all citizens however what we lack in availability we make up for in quality. After researching this topic is seems that every health care system has its faults and it seems to be a trade off of availability and quality. Which do you think is more important? Do you think it is possible to have both?

Health care reform may not be good for the nation, but it is good for me so I approve!

So even though I have very strong opinions on certain topics (including health care) I still try very hard to see everybody's point of view. I think that this is something that makes me easier to get along with in that even if I don't share the same opinions of a person I can still get a long with them as long as they can provide a valid argument as to why they hold that view point...."just because" does not qualify as a reason for me. It is because of this that I enjoyed looking at a recent poll on PollingReport.com in which they asked respondents their opinion on health care reform and if it was going to make things worse or better for them and their family as well as the country as a whole. The reason I found this poll interesting was that in both cases people seemed to think that health care reform would be better for them personally a higher number thought it would be better for the country as a whole. This makes me think that one of the things behind health care reform is individuals looking out for themselves. This shouldn't be surprising because that is just the way people are....we look out for #1 ourselves! I think that people need to try and take a step back and look at the bigger picture and realize that sometimes in order to help society as a whole....they may have to suffer a little. They will just have to decide if health care is worth the price....I personally think it is, however I am a person who would benefit.

Should Health Insurance Cover Eating Disorders??

So this weekend my roommate and her sister were getting into a heated discussion regarding disease types like eating disorders and alcoholism and whether these things are actually considered diseases or weaknesses. I think it is fairly clear, or at least to me, that clear cut diseases such as MS, Parkinson's, Type I Diabetes, kidney disease, and other chronic diseases should be covered through medical insurance because these people have not done anything to cause these diseases and they should not be punished because of things they were born with. The argument that my roommate and her sister were having is that my roommate as well as I see these diseases as not being in the person's control and should be covered through health insurance. Her sister believes that things such as eating disorders and mental illness are weaknesses and personal choices that people make. For example she believes that alcoholics have the choice wether or not to drink and they are simply being weak and therefore health care companies should not be required to cover their illness.

I have mental health issues that have run through my family so I again don't have an unbiased opinion on the matter and I don't see things such as eating disorders and mental illness as a choice and therefore should be covered by health insurance. I think these illnesses fall under the same category of "pre-existing" conditions and therefore they should not be able to be prejudice against when seeking insurance. I think that sometimes people overestimate the power people have over their brain and therefore I don't see it as a weakness. I was look at a website discussing health care issues which gave me more insight into eating disorders and how people who suffer from these already have enough struggles and don't need to have the added pressure of trying to find insurance. What are your thoughts on the topic? Do you consider these illness, diseases or weaknesses??

Do College Kids understand Health Insurance??

So for my Public Opinion class we had to write a paper regarding our topic, which mine is of course health care, and part of the paper was developing a questionnaire and talking about who our target demographic is. For mine I said that my target population would be the college students at Illinois State, since that is where I go and it seemed like the easiest population. However, after writing the paper I started to wonder if college age students would really know much regarding health insurance. I mean most if not all college age students are on their parents insurance plan and have not had to really give much thought to it. I know that if it wasn't for my pre-existing condition I probably would not know anything about health insurance and would just cost through on my parents plan, until I graduated and then got on my own plan when I got a job.

The thing is though that health insurance is a more complicated thing then some people think. Even if your plan is to simply go without insurance until you get a job that will provide insurance, that does not always work out the way you have planned. Some people can't go a period of time without health insurance because they need medicine, or doctor visits that they could not afford otherwise, or people who were always healthy could come down with a illness/get in an accident that then causes huge medical bills. With the rising cost of medical treatment going without health insurance is not a smart option, you never know what life is going to throw your way and it is not smart to take that chance. This is just something that I think college age students may not be aware of, and especially for seniors in college who are so close to graduating it is something that needs to be looked into. Let me know what you guys think? Do you think college age students have a good understanding of the importance of health insurance? Hope everyone had a good weekend.

A Look At The Bill Congress Passed

So I was taking a look at PollingReport.com to see some data on health care just to keep myself updated on the topic of health care and it reminded me again of how close this debate is. I think that this is something that makes the topic interesting is the fact that people are so split on the topic. It is not something everyone is for or everyone is against. Also, for my Public Opinion class we are designing a questionnaire so I was looking at different types of questions to ask and I really liked this question:

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Sept. 21-23, 2010. N=1,010 adults nationwide.  Margin of error ± 3.
"Thinking about the health care bill that Congress passed earlier this year,which of the  following statements best describes your view of what Congress  should do in the future?  Congress should leave the bill as it is.  Congress should make additional changes to increase the government's involvement in the nation's health care system.  Congress should repeal most of the major provisions in that bill and replace them with a completely different set of proposals." Options rotated3/10: "Thinking about the health care bill that Congress passed this week. . . ."

It has a lot of options involving the bill that Congress passed and what people think should be done about the bill. The majority of people said that Congress should repeal most of the major provisions in the bill and replace them. This shows that although people do want changes to health care some are not happy with the changes that are being make. What are your thoughts on this bill??

Just a Little Rant About Health Insurance

So I was watching this movie that randomly came on TBS that had Chris Rock in it and it in some way had to do with health care and was funny so I decided to watch the movie. In the movie Chris Rock's character dies (on accident-it wasn't his time) so the angel of death puts him back into a old white guy's body. The part that related to health care was that the person who Chris Rock became was a hot shot working for some corporation, and he was giving a sales pitch about insurance. The line that made me laugh was when he says "they should really call insurance "in case shit happens" and if shit don't happen you should get your money back!".

 

 I just think that our system is so messed up in that people pay so much money into having health insurance, yet health insurance companies don't want to accept people they may actually end up having to pay money for. That seems really selfish to me that the companies are just out to get rich then to actually help sick people. Like I have mentioned many times both me and my older sister have "pre-existing" conditions that make us people insurance companies don't want to cover. Although changes have been made to keep insurance companies from refusing to cover patients with pre-existing conditions,  I think these companies are still going to find ways around having to cover people that they ACTUALLY might have to cover. This really bothers me because although I agree that health care is pricy if I am willing to pay for the health care I think that I deserve to have to pay the same amount as other people and not be kept from being insured. Okay well that is my rant. Let me know what you think? 

Taking a Look at Nonattitudes and Insincerity

In my Public Opinion class we have been discussing two issues that affect the accuracy of polls and those issues are Nonattitudes and Insincerity. Nonattitdues are when people who don't have an opinion on a topic answer as though they do. For example, when it comes to my topic if a person who didn't have any opinion on health care reform but answered saying they were in favor of it, that would be a nonattitude. I am not thinking that nonattitudes is something that is going to be a very big problem in my issue. Even if people are uninformed or misinformed people have opinions on health care and health care reform. Something that might cause a problem however is insincerity. Insincerity is when a person has an opinion about a topic, but gives a different opinion. For example, with my topic if I asked a person if they approved of Obama's health care bill and they said yes even though they did not then that is insincerity. This could be a problem because health care is very controversial and people might lie to protect their image so they do not come off as cold or uncaring. People might have the opinion that it is not their problem if others are not insured, but do not express this opinion because it might show them in a negative light.  Also healthcare seems to be something that is very political. For example (and this is not always true) people who consider themselves Republican tend to be against healthcare reform (or at least Obama's plan) and people who consider themselves Democratic tend to be in favor of serious healthcare reform. This might cause people who have differing opinions from their political party to lie so they don't go against their parties view. I am not sure if the polls that I have seen so far actually have problems with insincerity but I did notice a difference in the amount of people who believe that the United States health care system has serious problems and the amount of people who support Obama's health care reform plan. Many more people agreed that their were serious problems in the system, yet not as many supported Obama's plan. Do you think that this might be an example of insincerity? I'm not sure but it is a problem that needs to be looked at when addressing polls.

U.S. compared to other Developed Countries

So for this blog I am not posting more statistics about public opinion but rather talking a little about the research paper that I have to do regarding health care. Last semester I took a politics class titled Public Policy, and it compared United States public policy to other developed countries. One of the things that struck me as the most interesting was the comparison of our health care system to the other developed countries especially Europe. The United States is the only developed country that does not have universal health care, which I find to be really interesting. One of the main things for the research paper that I am going to be looking at is the public opinion of the United States and other countries when it comes to health care. Do people in countries that have universal health care have a positive opinion of it? What do they think about the United States not having universal health? Should the government be responsible for health care? These are all questions that I am very interested in finding out. I am still unsure on what my direct opinion on the matter is, because although I have reasons for wanting the government responsible for health care (kidney condition, and a sister with MS), I have also heard about the problems that come with universal health care. An example of a problem that I personally have seen with universal health care happened to my cousin who lives in England. My godfather Jimmy has been in kidney failure for over a year and was put on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Waiting on the list for a kidney can take over 5 years so it is best to try and find a match in your family. His sister Janice, who lives in England, was a match and was willing to give him her kidney. Because England has universal health care the process of Janice being tested (there are lots and lots of steps that have to happen before you donate) took a very very long time that would have happened a lot faster if she was in America. So it is clear to me through this scenario and what I learned in my Public Policy class that both America's health care system as well as universal health care have its problems, and I am interested in learning more about which system has more benefits then flaws. Let me know what your opinions are on this. What do you think about America being the only developed country without universal health care?
Hope everyone had a good weekend.

State Of The Healthcare System

So I was looking back at my previous blogs and realized that I have showed what percent of the public thinks healthcare is the governments responsibility and what percent of the public is for or against Obama'a healthcare plan, but I realized I should also show the public's opinion on the actual healthcare system the U.S. has today. It would make sense that we would first have to see if the American public actually thinks the system is in trouble. 

According to Gallup this is the results when asked: Which of these statements do you think best describes the U.S. healthcare system today -- [ROTATED: it is in a state of crisis, it has major problems, it has minor problems, (or) it does not have any problems]?

As you can see from this poll the majority of people believe that the U.S. healthcare system has major problems at 50%. Not only do the majority of people think that the system is seriously flawed but only 2% believe that the system does not have any problems. Which goes to show that even if people are against Obama's healthcare plan, they do believe that something needs to be done to fix our healthcare system. Let me know what your opinions are on the topic. Do you agree that our healthcare system is in a state of crisis? If so what do you propose be done to correct it. 

	State of crisis	Major problems	Minor problems	Does not have any problems	No opinion
	%	%	%	%	%
2009 Nov 5-8	21	50	25	2	1
2009 Sep 11-13	17	56	25	2	*
2008 Nov 13-16	14	59	26	1	1
2007 Nov 11-14	17	56	24	2	1
2006 Nov 9-12	16	55	25	3	1
2005 Nov 7-10	18	52	28	1	1
2004 Nov 7-10	14	53	31	2	*
2003 Nov 3-5	14	54	30	1	1
2002 Nov 11-14	11	54	32	2	1
2001 Nov 8-11	5	44	47	2	2
2000 Sep 11-13	12	58	28	1	1
1994 Sep 6-7 ^	17	52	29	1	1
* Less than 0.5%
^ WORDING: Which of these statements do you think best describes the U.S. healthcare system today -- the healthcare system is in a state of crisis, it has major problems, it has minor problems, or it does not have any problems? Hope this blog opened some eyes to the fact that Americans almost all agree that the system is flawed.....the debate comes in on the way to go about fixing it.

Are you in favor or against Obama's healthcare plan??

Hello Again!

I was looking through statistics on the Gallup website and found a statistic that reminded me just how controversial the issue of health care reform is and how it truly is an issue in which many people are in favor of and many people are against. It is not a black or white issue in which the large majority is in favor or against, but rather is very split. The specific statistic that I found was from March 2010 in which it asked what percent of people were either in favor or opposed to the healthcare bill proposed by Obama. 45% of people where in favor of the bill and 48% were against the bill, which shows that it is almost 50/50 on the issue of Obama's health care bill. Attached in this blog is a website that gives an overview of the major adjustments to health care this bill has, along with websites for anyone who is interested in becoming more educated on the issue to look at. I already know my opinion on this matter in that I am in the 45% of Americans that are in favor of the bill, but would love to hear what you think about the matter. Happy Reading!!

http://www.healthcarebill2010.info/?ysmwa=L4zomLCgd6Apc7B8r9o1GvnsTu4et1ndwOFc8Z7d6lEQKgFQFRjWJtgo90FDd6G6

http://www.gallup.com/poll/4708/Healthcare-System.aspx

Point of Interest from Gallup report

http://www.gallup.com/poll/Topics.aspx

For this post I took a look at the gallup polls concerning healthcare and looked to see if anything stood out to be as interesting. I noticed the first poll to be interesting in that it showed the trend in what percent of Americans believe it is the governments responsibility to make sure Americans have health coverage. This poll showed that the trend is changing in that more people use to think that the government was responsible, but in 2010 the poll showed that a higher percentage of people do not think it is the governments responsibility. This seemed interesting to me because we are now seeing more government interaction with healthcare what with President Obama's healthcare bill, that now that the government seems to be getting more involved that more people are saying it is not the governments responsibility.

Another poll that I found interesting was one that showed the reasons people who support healthcare reform gave. The two biggest reasons are ones that I agree with in that people need healthcare-there are too many people uninsured, and that the system is currently broke and needs to be fixed. I agree with these reasons as my main reasons behind supporting healthcare reform. It was very interesting to see polls detailing how people feel about healthcare reform.

POL 312 Issue Blogging Introduction

Hey everyone!

My name is Allie Mendez and I am a senior at Illinois State University. I am a Political Science Major with a Minor in Legal Studies and am planing on becoming a paralegal after graduation. I am a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority of which my older sister Katie is also a member.

I am really looking forward to this class because I find Public Opinion to be very interesting and it allows for the discussion of controversial issues, where people get to voice their opinions on these topics. For this project I chose to examine healthcare because it is something that has affected me and my family directly. I was born with a kidney condition that requires yearly visits to a specialist and every now and then I have to go on medication to get the problem under control. My older sister Katie was also diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in October, which has forever changed her life. She has to take daily injections to prevent flares from happening. Because of the fact that both me and my sister have preexisting conditions if something was not changed about the healthcare system it would be very difficult/expensive for us to get insured once we are off our parents insurance.

This is a topic that is very close to my heart and I am looking forward to reading and doing research and finding out what the public opinion is on this matter. Obviously I believe that our healthcare system needs changing, but I am also very open to hearing other's view on the topic so that I can be as informed as possible and create an educational opinion on this topic. This is my first ever blog and I look forward to writing many more!