Homework 1:
(due September 4)
Read: Section I, page 5-10 of Ruger, Jennifer Prah. “Toward a theory of a right to health: capability and incompletely theorized agreements.” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 18, no. 2 (2006): 3. Section I (pages 5-10)
or
Gawande, Atul. “Is health care a right?” New Yorker, October 2, 2017
Write (300-800 words):
Choose two different views on the question of health care as a right and compare them. In your answer, define the principles behind the views. For each view, give an opinion (preferably yours) about why the view may be valid and why it may be invalid.
Homework 2:
(due September 16)
Complete the worksheet. Solutions here.
Homework 3:
(due September 20)
Sign-up for and attend meeting with Shane to discuss paper topic. Sign-up is here.
Homework 4:
(due September 30)
Read: Wilbur J. Cohen and Milton Friedman. Social Security: Universal or Selective?. American enterprise institute for public research, 1972.
on youtube or in print
and
DeWitt, Larry. “Research Note #25: Ponzi Schemes vs. Social Security.” Historians Office, Social Security Administration.
Also look up Cohen and Friedman on wikipedia for a brief biography.
Answer based on readings:
Why are Wilbur Cohen and Milton Friedman useful sources for discussing social security (in 2-4 sentences each)?
What are 3 pros of Social Security according to Cohen and 3 pros according to Friedman?
What are Friedman’s main criticisms of Social Security (in 1 or 2 paragraphs)?
How does Cohen respond (in 1 paragraph)?
Also answer:
Which parts of each argument do you agree with? Is social security bad? Is it a ponzi scheme (1 or 2 paragraphs)?
Homework 5:
(due October 7)
Read: Quadagno, Jill. “Why the United States has no national health insurance: Stakeholder mobilization against the welfare state, 1945-1996.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior (2004): 25-44.
Answer the following questions; your responses should total one to two pages (600-1200 words) in length.
a) What is the point of the paper? Is there a question the paper is trying to answer?
b) What is the paper’s methodology? Is the paper theoretical, empirical, a meta-analysis, a case study, or something else?
c) What is the data of the paper? What set of information is the paper using to draw its conclusions? How generalizable is this information?
d) What is the paper’s conclusion? Are any robustness checks or sensitivity analyses used? Does this conclusion overlook anything; how would you criticize this conclusion?
e) What effect might this paper have on other papers, the field, or society? What additional questions might future researchers ask to build upon this paper?
Homework 6:
(due October 30)
Read: Biskupic, Joan. “The inside story of how John Roberts negotiated to save Obamacare”. cnn.com, March 25, 2019
Answer the following questions; your responses to parts a-d should be short, one to three sentences each. In part e, you shoould respond in one to two paragraphs.
a) In one sentence, what were the two main goals of the ACA?
b) What were the three ways in which the ACA sought to achieve these goals?
c) In the initial March vote, which one of these three parts of the ACA was struck down? In the April compromise, this part was instead upheld and a different part of the ACA was struck down. Which part was struck down in the compromise?
d) What were the three reasons Biskupic gives as possibilities for Robert’s guiding the compromise through the Supreme Court?
e) Explain why each of these possibilities rings true or false to you. If the same court (with Kennedy and Alito rather than Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) were to vote on the constitutionality of a single-payer health program in the US, what clues does the article give about how the court might rule?
Homework 7:
(due November 4)
Read: Obama, Barack. “United States health care reform: progress to date and next steps.” Jama 316, no. 5 (2016): 525-532.
Answer the following questions; your responses should total one to two pages (600-1200 words) in length.
a) What is the point of the paper? Is there a question the paper is trying to answer?
b) What is the paper’s methodology? Is the paper theoretical, empirical, a meta-analysis, a case study, or something else?
c) What is the data of the paper? What set of information is the paper using to draw its conclusions? How generalizable is this information?
d) What is the paper’s conclusion? Are any robustness checks or sensitivity analyses used? Does this conclusion overlook anything; how would you criticize this conclusion?
e) What effect might this paper have on other papers, the field, or society? What additional questions might future researchers ask to build upon this paper?
Homework 8:
(due November 11)
Read: Rosenthal, Elisabeth. “Those indecipherable medical bills? They’re one reason health care costs so much hospitals have learned to manipulate medical codes—Often resulting in mind-boggling bills.” New York Times Magazine (2017).
Answer the Following questions. The first two should be answered briefly, while the second two may need a couple paragraphs each. Your response should be one or two pages (600-1200 words) in length).
a) What does the article suggest an uninsured patient do to fight high health costs after (or before) an extended hospital stay?
b) Why does the article suggest hospitals charge such high costs for uninsured patients?
c) What do you think hospitals could do to deal with these problems?
d) What government regulations or policies do you think could help deal with these problems?
Homework 9:
(due November 13)
Attend and participate in November 11 discussion. Choose and read two articles from this sheet. Prepare in advance of that discussion answers to the following questions for each article (so each question should be answered once for each paper):
a) List all of the different possible causes of excessively high costs in US healthcare.
b) Which of these does the article think is most important?
c) What theoretical reason does the paper give (2-4 sentences)?
d) What empirical reason does the paper give (2-4 sentences)?
And finally,
e) Between the two papers, which is more convincing and why (2-4 sentences)?
Homework 10:
(due November 20)
Attend and participate in November 18 discussion. Choose one plan from this sheet. Answer the following questions (2-6 sentences for each part):
a) What are the main costs of the plan relative to the current status quo?
b) What are the main benefits of the plan relative to the current status quo?
c) What do you think the plan would have on the wealthy and upper-middle class? (think in part about what the plan would do to the stock market and people retirement investment accounts? To private health insurance companies? To corporate payrolls?)
d) What effect would the plan have on the poor and lower-middle class (think in part about what the plan would do to people who do not have retirement savings and access to employer-based group health insurance?)?
e) If the plan passed one the first day of the next presidential term (Jan 20, 2021) – either the first day of Trump’s second term or the first day of a newly elected president’s first term – what do you think would be the general opinion of the plan in 2031 (consider both a general audience’s opinion and the opinion of policy elites such as your future selves)?