Blog #8 - What I'm Thankful For...(homework)

           I’m thankful for a lot of things in my life.  I’m healthy, I have steady jobs, a roof over my head and a beautiful family that loves and supports me.  One of the most important things I can say that I’m most appreciative of, was to be given the opportunity to come and reside in the United States. At first, I was very afraid. I didn’t know what to expect and if I was going to like living here. Even though I came with my parents I didn’t want to leave my relatives behind, especially my maternal grandparents whom I had a very close relationship with. In the Beginning it was very hard to get used to the American lifestyle and the freezing weather.  As the years passed by we become more settled. Now I have a younger sibling, my parents have good jobs, we live in a beautiful home, I graduated High School and soon I’ll be graduating LaGuardia Community College.  My life is far from perfect but I feel blessed to live the way I do. This country has offered me so many opportunities.  I gained so much maturity and responsibility at a young age and today I have the strength to cope with two jobs and still make time to go to school. As stressful as it may sound I feel very accomplished.

Blog # 7 Things I'm Thankful For... (classwork)

1. My beautiful family and true friends
2. Good health and Safety
3. To cope with two jobs on a daily basis
4. Education
5. The opportunity to live in this country
6. Strengh and determination
7. My boyfriend
8. Life in general
9. Technology (my cellphone & macbook)
10. To have a roof over my head
11. Freedom
12. I'M THANKFUL FOR WHO I AM, I LOVE MYSELF <3

Blog # 6 - My Experience Peer Editing 101 Papers & How Could This Benefit Me...

      Editing Eng 101 drafts wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. To me it was very time consuming because I actually used the entire class period to carefully revise the papers. As horrible as it may sound, I thought the essays were going to be a disaster. I was once an Eng 101 student so I know how hard it is to write a college essay format paper for the first time. I went through a lot of C’s and spent a lot of time in the English department to get where I am right now. To my surprise they weren’t bad at all, they were actually quite good and enjoyable to read. Overall, the two drafts had lots of good information. Although they were assigned the same topic, both papers were very unique.  The first essay talked about leading terms to a successful romantic relationship and the second one described how technology and social networking websites have been very influential in developing all types of relationships. Both papers had minor grammar errors, run-on sentences, and lacked proper quotation. I was skeptical at first because I did not want to give them the wrong feedback or to sound rude. I tried my best to give them as much information I could. I gave quoting examples; I told them to proofread their papers, and I gave them positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. I sincerely think that I’m not qualified to peer edit anyone’s paper because sometimes I still struggle with mines, but I hope that with what I learned from prior Eng classes, I was able to help these students strive for a successful paper.

        

       Peer editing made me overlook my research paper more in depth. I keep proof reading it over and over to see what I could fix and if my argument supports my thesis. According to Professor McCormick, I have lots of good information but I need to clarify my position, so I’ll be definitely working on improving this issue.  I’ve been dedicating a lot of time on my paper and I’ll continue to do so because it’s yet to be done. I’ll have all my body paragraphs developed by the end of this month and I’ll keep revising it till the day it’s due. I’m giving this research paper my all and I hope that my hard work pays off at the end of the semester.

Blog # 5 - Motified Thesis and Additional Body Paragraphs.

Natalia Duarte

Eng 103

Dr. McCormick
Natalia.Duarte89@gmail.com
          

                                                Research Paper Draft # 3

           President Obama’s Poorly Designed Health Care Reform.

                 

             The making of President Obama’s long campaign trail explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election, learned the personal and political skills necessary to make history in American Politics and worldwide. Throughout his candidacy, Obama campaigned for a better health care reform. However, after more than a year in office, he signed the new health care bill that has sparked tension and controversy between democrats and republicans. Despite the President’s good intention to aid those who cannot afford to buy private health insurance or to force employers to provide their employees health coverage even in the smallest of business by 2014, many Americans still doubt the real benefits behind this bill. Instead of creating a whole new health system, the law tries to upgrade the current one.  The gap between how much Americans spend on health care and what they get in return occurs because they are embedded in a confusing system that gives them low value for their money, which makes people demand more than they need.  I believe that president Obama’s health care bill was rushed, poorly designed and it should have been implemented in a more inclusive, publicly funded way.

        

     The New health Care law will cause a costly and continuous economical downturn nationwide. Peter Grier, author of Health Care Reform Bill 101; Who Will Pay For Reform? states,“ Change like that doesn't come cheap. More specifically, change like that would cost about $940 billion over its first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.” The law doesn’t make a single change to achieve its goal of insuring nearly all Americans. Instead, it provides a loose safety net designed to attract people who do not receive health coverage

through employment and can't afford to buy their own, who are unemployed, and those who have been dependent on their insurance due to pre existing conditions. After the bill is enacted in 2014, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, with the exception of immigrants who will neither benefit from this law nor Medicaid even if they pay out of their own pockets. Moreover, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a “$695 annual fee”. According to Arthur B. Laffer, author of How to Fix the Health-Care

Wedge, “a one trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further.” The bill plans to overtax small businesses, large employers and the rich. If business owners cannot afford their employees, the health-care recipients will lose their jobs. With the rise in unemployment, more people will have to depend on the government (welfare) to make ends meet. Additionally, they won’t be able to pay for either health insurance or imposed fees.

            Initially, America has the world’s most expensive health care cost. According to William E. Lafferty, author of Healing, Medical Care, and Health Service Organizations, “the United States has by far the most expensive health care system in the world per capita (per person).” Many indices of health care effectiveness shows that the United States fares very poorly in comparison to other developed capitalist countries. Almost all the other developed capitalist countries have universal health care. All their citizens are insured and their per capita costs are much lower. Even communist Cuba and capitalist Denmark provides free health care for all of its citizens and both countries have a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S.  Indeed, many may argue that they rather have freedom then free health care but sometimes I wonder if I am really living in the land of the free. Canada also has a much lower infant and overall mortality rate than the U.S. Holly Dressel, author of Has Canada Got the Cure? states,“ Most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the world that doesn’t already have a fundamentally public-that is, tax-supported-health care system.”  In other words, the U.S has been divided between private and public health care funding for the past 30 years or so. The difference is that Canada has a single-payer system. The government pays for almost all medical costs. In contrast, the United States rely on many competitive private insurance companies (non-profit as well as for- profit) and employment-based insurance plans, ignoring the fact that this type of funding leads to the fall in public health.  It is also unfortunate that about half of all reasons for bankruptcy in the United States are due to a serious health problems, coverage denial, and costly medical bills. Unlike the current system, single payer would let patients choose their own doctors and put an end to the bureaucratic policies of private insurances. Health care would be both affordable and universal, and the inequalities in health care would no longer contribute to the overall inequalities of U.S. society. Therefore single-payer would be a big step in the right direction.

         One of the biggest gaps in the new health care system occurs within employment-based insurance. The original plan was to help families keep their health costs to an estimated 10% of income, until  Congress realized they couldn’t afford to support everyone. Large companies are expected to continue to offer coverage to their employees but we can’t say the same about the smallest companies. For this matter, Congress imposed the fine, which is completely understandable because every employee, be the firm large or small, should be entitled to health coverage. Since this bill was rushed and not carefully analyzed, something had to go wrong. The penalty that companies will pay for failing to offer coverage is lower than the actual cost of the insurance. So basically, employers have the choice to either provide insurance or pay the fine since it’s cheaper. Nothing will count against them as long as they’re paying the fine, the government won’t interfere.  To be continued…

         The New health Care reform will cause a continuous economical downturn. According to Arthur B. Laffer, author of How to Fix the Health-Care Wedge, “a one trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further.” The bill’s plan is to overtax small businesses, large employers and the rich. If business owners cannot afford their employees, the health-care recipients will lose their jobs. With the rise in unemployment, more people will have to depend on the government (welfare) to make ends meet. Additionally, they won’t be able to pay for either health insurance or imposed fees. Thomas E. Getzen author of Health Economics and Financing also states, “ An economic boom feels so good that people may not realize that such high growth rates are abnormal, that another recession is bound to come eventually” (314-15).   To be continued…

Work Cited:

 Dressel, Holly.  “Has Canada Got the Cure?”   Yes Magazine  4 Aug.  2006.  30 Oct. 2010< http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/health-care-for-all/has-canada-got-the-cure>.

Getzen, Thomas E. “Health Economics and Finance.” Ed. Wiley, 4^th edition.  New Jersey,  2010.    314-15.  Print.       

Laffer B. Arthur.  “How to Fix the Health-Care Wedge.”  The Wall Street Journal

5  Aug. 2009.  19 Oct. 2010 SB1000124052970204619004574324361508092006.html>.

 Lafferty E. William. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Healing, Medical Care, and Health Service Organizations. Washington: DOHS, 2004. PDF file.

Regnier Pat, Michelle Andrews, and Amanda Gengler. " The Truth About Health

Care Reform." Money 39.4 (2010): 70-80. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Oct. 2010.