Essay 4
For your fourth essay, you will investigate a political issue of interest to voters in the U.S. Read the instructions and guidelines below carefully and review the grading rubric before submitting your work.
Instructions:
Find a NEWS article that addresses a current political issue of concern to voters in t U.S. There are numerous possibilities, such as immigration, election interference, trade, healthcare, climate change, abortion, corruption, etc. It must, however, be an issue that is not a topic of another one of your essays. (A news article is an article from a media source like a newspaper or magazine such as the New York Times, FOX, The Washington Post, VICE, etc. that addresses a current event. It does not include sources like Wikipedia, eHow, dictionaries, academic journals, or other information websites.)
Write a minimum 300-word essay that answers the following questions:
Based on the article you chose, what is the political issue and why is it important to voters in the U.S.?
How do current political parties in the U.S. stand on the issue? Do you think their stances are reasonable and based on facts or are they designed to simply appeal to voters’ biases and emotions? (See Chapter 16 for information on political parties.)
How can social science research be used to better inform politicians and voters about the issue, i.e. where can someone go to get reliable information about the issue to make an informed decision?
Guidelines
Your essay should:
be a total of 300 words or more.
The 300-word limit DOES NOT include the questions, names, titles, and references.
It also does not include meaningless filler statements
have factual information from the textbook and/or appropriate articles and websites.
be original work and will be checked for plagiarism.
You will receive a zero if substantial portions of your work are taken from other sources without proper citation
have references and citations for your sources, including the textbook
Cite your sources in-text and provide references for each source according to the APA Style Guide. FYI web addresses or links are not full references!
Essays are automatically submitted to SafeAssign. Watch the video – SafeAssign for Students – Blackboard Learn
Any work that SafeAssign identifies as having more than a 10% rate of plagiarism after quoted material and small matches (10 words or less) are excluded will not be read and will receive a grade of F (No points).
All essays must be written using Microsoft Office applications such as Word. Work that is not submitted through the assigned dropbox or that is submitted using software that is not compatible with Safe Assign (SafeAssign accepts files in .doc, .docx, .docm, .ppt, .pptx, .odt, .txt, .rtf, .pdf, and .html file formats only) will not be read and will receive a grade of zero.
Submitting a paper that was already submitted by the student to another professor and/or course is also considered an act of academic dishonesty. Students who are found doing this will also receive an F (no points) for this assignment. Students must write a different new essay or paper for every class they take.
Essays must be submitted through the proper dropbox. Essays that are not submitted through the assigned dropbox will not be accepted. Do not submit essays through the Comments Window!!
No essays will be accepted after the due date.
View the grading rubric above (Points Possible).
ANSWER
Healthcare
Political issue
Medicare for all is a political issue that has attracted comments from various sections of the American society. “There is a solution: A COVID survivor’s life-or-death battle for Medicare for All” is an article in the Guardia authored by Amanda Holpuch. The article features Mariana Pineda who was hospitalized with COVID-19 last April and cannot afford care except via GoFundMe. The author uses her story to make the case for single payer healthcare system in the United States.
Its importance to voters in the U.S.
Health care is important for many Americans especially with the rising costs of medication and health procedures. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the flawed U.S. healthcare industry. Working class Americans who are the majority of the population are not able to afford the cost of healthcare in the United States. The cost of health insurance has been increasing beyond the reach of many Americans. There is a genuine concern among 63% of Americans who favor a government sponsored healthcare.
How current political parties stand on the issue
The Democratic Party favors Medicare for all more than the Republican Party. While most members of the Democratic party favors government involvement in the provision of healthcare to Americans, majority of the Republicans do not favor such a perspective.
Do you think their stances are reasonable and based on facts?
The stances by most Democrats on the need for universal health care are based on facts because the cost of healthcare is rising beyond affordability in the country. Countries with universal health care have better healthcare outcomes than the United States. However, the stances taken by the Republic Party is often shaped by corporations in the health sector that do not want to be regulated against uncontrolled profiteering at the expense of the people.
Are they designed to simply appeal to voters’ biases and emotions?
Most Democrats who support universal healthcare base their arguments on facts and not simply appeal to voters’ biases and emotions. Facts support that most Americans are struggling to afford healthcare and government assistance from a single payer system would he beneficial. Republicans use scaremongering techniques like lining universal healthcare to communism to scare voters away from universal healthcare.
Where to get reliable research about issue
Reliable information about health care can be found in department of health and human services and all the organizations in it. There are many healthcare journals that can also supply valuable information on healthcare.
Reference
Holpuch, A. (2021, April 5). ‘There is a solution’: a Covid survivor’s life-or-death battle for Medicare for All. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/05/us-medicare-for-all-covid-survivor-treatment
