This article in Slate reminds me of our 'American Society' text. It has a current view on how Obamacare correlates with prosperity. If our book had been published this year, I feel like the chapter on healthcare would sound a lot like this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/02/cbo_on_obamacare_people_won_t_be_as_desperate_for_work_and_nobody_s_going.html
2 comments:
Ema (this is Ema, right? :) -
Thanks for sharing!
I think this connects really well with the American Society text (and, I suspect you are correct that the text- if written post-ACA - would include something along these lines.) I think this also ties in well with our discussion of propaganda/coercion/consent and is a good illustration of major media outlets reinforcing the status quo and protecting/legitimizing the interest of elites.
I thought this really illustrated the point that the narrative coming from the media (at least the media sources mentioned in this article) is clearly from an elite perspective and not from the perspective of middle and working class folks who will, in fact, benefit from the Affordable Care Act if the results is them being able to work less (and have more freedom/choice when it comes to where and how much they work) while simultaneously being healthier, more secure and generally more prosperous.
"...the mere fact that it will lead to less labor supply is really neither here nor there. Any useful safety net program—Social Security, say—decreases labor supply by making people better off. For that matter, prosperity itself reduces labor supply. People used to work six days a week rather than five, but we don’t anymore because we’re richer and can afford more time off.
If the latest news from the CBO changes our thinking about anything, it should be about the status quo that prevailed as of last year. If Obamacare really does cause millions of people to voluntarily leave full-time employment, that shows us how much avoidable suffering the earlier system was causing. Not just in terms of the problems faced by the actually uninsured but by the hidden cost of keeping people locked into jobs for fear of losing coverage."
I'd like to thank whoever posted this, cause it gives me a chance to rant about something which has been bothering me about the text;)
One of the things that really annoys me about these kinds of articles is just how disconnected it is from the individuals who are most affected. I feel the book falls far short in this too:
This article, the people and reports the article is complaining about and our text all talk about people like they're numbers. Why do sociologists so often do this?
I realize it's difficult not to bring numbers in when you're talking about the 300,000,000+ people who Obamacare will affect, but seriously, the narrative in all of these is so dehumanizing when it speaks about people like they're all the same, or only different because of their income, etc.
Not to mention that the language in itself which they use to profess the benefits of socialism to the masses -- in the book more-so here than this article -- is entirely academic, which, I'm sorry to say, is completely out of reach to most people in this country, specifically because of the inequalities (educational) for which they lament.
How about they try getting down off their high(er education) horses and writing to people in a language they can understand.
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