Homework 1:
(due February 5)
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 February 12)
Read: Conclusion – Americas First Modern Social Policies and Their Legacies in Skocpol, Theda. Protecting soldiers and mothers. Harvard University Press, 1995. – available on HuskyCT
Write: Answer the following questions (one to five sentences to each question mark):
a) What year did the Civil War end (you may need to use google for to answer this)? According to Skocpol, why were Civil War pensions successful while broader old-age pensions and unemployment schemes were unsuccessful (hint: see page 532)? What does patronage mean and what did patronage have to do with the extension of social insurance beyond Civil War veterans?
b) When was the progressive era (you may need to use google for to answer this)? What male dominated social organizations existed during this period and what social programs did they advocate? What female dominated social organizations existed during this period and what social programs did they advocate?
c) Consider the quotes on the last 3 pages of the pdf. In your own words, what were the arguments Gompers and Seager give against social welfare programs? In your own words, what were the feminist arguments for social welfare programs?
Homework 3:
(due February 19)
Read and Watch: video: Wilbur J.. Cohen, and Milton Friedman. Social Security: Universal or Selective?. American enterprise institute for public research, 1972.
on youtube (Rough transcript avalable in print)
Also read the Wikipedia pages on Cohen and Friedman
DeWitt, Larry. “Research Note #25: Ponzi Schemes vs. Social Security.” Historians Office, Social Security
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 4:
(due February 26)
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 5:
(due February 29)
Turn in paper proposal (see description here). All members of the group should separately turn in the same file to their own huskyct. Group members must be clearly identified in proposal.
Homework 6:
(due March 4)
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 April 1)
Read: The introduction and chapter summaries of Boushey, Heather, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh. “Recession ready: Fiscal policies to stabilize the American economy.” Brookings Institution, May 16 (2019). at this link.
Answer:
What are the five existing economic stabalizers? What are the two proposed stabalizers?
For each of the seven stabalizers, answer the following questions:
What sector of the economy or population is being directly supported?
How are other sectors affected indirectly?
How does this stabalizer change during an economic downturn?
Read the Introduction to Claudia Sahm’s chapter, Direct Stimulus Payments to Individuals.
Answer:
What is the policy rule she proposes (now known as the Sahm Rule)?
How are income taxes like an automatic stabalizer?
Sahm’s essay starts with two benefits of Sahm’s proposal of automatic payments. What are they?
What is a political argument against Sahm’s proposal?
Homework 8:
(due April 13)
Attend and participate in April 8 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 discussed 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 9:
(due April 20)
Attend and participate in April 15 discussion. Choose and read two articles from this sheet. Prepare in advance of that discussion answers to the following questions for one article (so each question should be answered once for each paper):
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)?
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)?