Health Care Reforms

The issue of health care and the establishment of this new reform is something that I've always been on the fence about. I think for some people it may be too good to be true and for others it may be just be a bunch of bull. Coming from a conservative family, it's rare that I hear positive things about new policies or reforms that the Democratic party want to enforce. A lot of people in my family are so right-winged that they don't want to believe the democrats could enforce something so beneficial but after going through this session I really think they could. This SEEMS like a really great reform program. After listening to Gail's story and several of the other stories from people in states where parts of the reform have already been to take off, this program seems like it could be a miracle to a lot of people. I didn't really know much about health insurance since I'm under my parent's so I didn't know about the lifetime limits, the cancellation of your insurance, discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions, or annual limits. However, like I mentioned earlier, this could just be something too good to be true so people will be in favor of it before all of the cons of the reform take action. Like Frake said in one of the articles we had to read "There is a lot in the rest of the bill that is incredibly onerous," he said. "You have heard very little about these things that are upcoming."

Why you believe people are poor in the United States? It's a money issue. There are tons of contributing factors such as lack of education, lack of skills, housing, etc. However, just imagine if poor people had money; well, they wouldn't be considered poor.

What you think is being done about poverty? There are plenty of things that have been done and are being done however poverty isn't an issue in itself-it's an issue within issues within issues. Those issues are being acknowledged b/c poverty can't be fixed directly; it just can't.

Policy Responses

I liked the approach taken in the film; bringing father's into the picture. Because you wonder, like, where are these dads? Selling drugs & doing them, in jail, with another woman, etc. and yeah, that's what most of them are doing. But why? I think the film did a good job answering this by following Thigpen's life. I think father's play a major role in a person's life; if you're a girl you may tend to look for that lost love in another guy/other guys and if you're a boy you'll turn to "the streets" like Thigpen said. It's true that some people who aren't in poverty grow up without dad's or have very distant relationships with their dad's but I don't think it's the same as growing up without a dad in poverty. Everything is just that much different when you're in poverty, because your outlets around your environment aren't good schools, or good jobs, or good people. They are the streets, the drugs, the crime and the people who are in the same living conditions as them.

Another interesting thing in the film was Angela Jobe's response to putting work aside for a little bit to further her education to get a better job. She was so against it and it made me wonder why wouldn't you want to do that? The woman that came to her house was in poverty just like her and got out of it because of furthering education. Does Angela really think that her work is worth that much even when her family still struggles? This made me wonder how many other working people in poverty have this same attitude and if they'd still have this attitude after meeting someone who could be an inspiration to them-someone who could identify with them and have been in their shoes.

I don't think that working women in poverty are an inspiration like Bill Clinton said. At the end of the day if the work that they're doing doesn't progressively help them out of poverty how will they ever become an inspiration?
How well do you think poverty is being addressed?
I think after this session poverty is being addressed as much as we hear about it, however I did learn that there is more to poverty than just the food stamps and other government aid such as Clinton's pledge to "end welfare as we know it"

Poverty and Wages

I was really intrigued by this session. I think that this is yet another thing that's overlooked when it comes to talking about poverty and what things we can do to help prevent more people falling into it. In one of the clips I think a good point was made about your work being worth it. I thought it was interesting to see that even if people are working full time plus over time, their yearly income is still relatively low. While raising wages isn't the resolution to poverty, I definitely feel like it would prevent people and families from falling into poverty. I've known people who have worked in restaraunts and location plays a major role in their overall income from their job. One of my friends worked at a restaurant in Buckhead, while the other one worked at a restaurant in Riverdale. If you've never heard about either of these places, Buckhead is in the top ten most richest area codes of the country and Riverdale's crime rates are increasing everyday. Needless to say, while they were both servers and making the same hourly wage, their location put their overall income on different levels.
Going back to how a couple of my peers described poverty as the homeless people walking around our school, this session sheds light on the hard-working people in poverty. It was good to be exposed to this b/c I feel like most people, and sometimes myself, fall into the assumption that all people in poverty are lazy and just want to be dependent on the government. One of the things my group and I learned through the budget exercise was that not all people in poverty rely on government aid however if they were willing to not abuse the aid, they could live comfortable lives and not fall under the poverty level.