United States and The National Health Care Program
After reading chapter one and reviewing the PowerPoint, you should complete the following tasks:
Answer the following questions in complete sentences (5-7 sentence responses):
- Why is the United States the last industrial country to adopt a national health care program? Which sociological perspective(s) best explains why public and political support for health care reform has been difficult to achieve?
- How is illness functional in society? What behavior is expected from someone who is sick? (‘The Sick Role’)
- Explain from a conflict perspective how health inequalities are shaped by conflict and competing interests between groups.
- In this exercise, you will listen to a podcast on medical history and answer questions about how it demonstrates the social construction of health and illness. The podcast, Sawbones, (http://maximumfun.org/shows/sawbones (Links to an external site.)) is a weekly show where a husband-and-wife team (she’s a medical doctor and he’s a comedian) discuss a variety of topics in medical history, often focusing on a particular disease or a particular treatment.
- First, choose one of the following episodes of Sawbones.
- “Birth Control” (http://maximumfun.org/sawbones/sawbones-birth-control (Links to an external site.))
- “Lobotomy” (http://maximumfun.org/sawbones/sawbones-lobotomy (Links to an external site.))
- “Hysteria” (http://maximumfun.org/sawbones/sawbones-hysteria (Links to an external site.))
- “Green Sickness” (http://maximumfun.org/sawbones/sawbones-green-sickness (Links to an external site.))
- Then, write your answers to the following questions:
- Which social factors (class, race, gender, etc.) influenced the treatment or illness you studied? How?
- How did conceptions of morality or responsibility factor into the understanding of the illness or treatment? How does this reveal how health and illness are socially constructed?
- How did shared understandings of the disease affect public policy about the disease or the afflicted?
- First, choose one of the following episodes of Sawbones.
