Assignment task:
I want to start off by saying that Mr. Katz has a lot of really good insight and information in his presentation. Much of what he said I can directly relate to. To be totally transparent, I am a person who has lived my whole adult life below the national poverty level which is why I chose to go back to school at age 43 to get a better education so that I can make a better living for myself. I have found that higher education is really the only way to make sure that I better myself. I also find it true that the healthcare system in America being built on the middle-class model does not meet the healthcare needs of people like me. Being a person that has had to be on state funded insurance (medical assistance to be exact), I oftentimes had a very hard time finding services not only for basic and preventative health care like yearly physicals, but also services like dental care and mental health care. What I found most enlightening about Katz's video was just the acknowledgement about these low-income patients and the struggles that they face that most of us are not aware of. Just by him talking about the disparities low-income people go through, brings an awareness of a faulty system that clearly need to be addressed.
Some of the assumptions I think that people make of low-income people is that these people are lazy and not hard working. For me, this could not be further from the truth. I have always been a hard worker, but I also have had things like addiction and bi-polar disorder that has hindered me from performing my best. Low-income people from what I have experienced and lived are very much hard working, they just do not have the same opportunities as the average person. Another assumption is that low-income people have the same access to things like healthy foods, and affordable prescription medications that the average middle class person has which is also not true. In fact, there had been many times where I either had to choose between buying my bi-polar medication that was not covered by medical assistance insurance or buying food to feed my children when they were little. I of course chose the latter every time I was put into that situation, which would eventually lead me back to relapsing because I would start to self-medicate with the hopes of my mental health getting better. Thus, I became stuck in a sick cycle, one I am proud to say I got out of 5.5 years ago and have been clean and sober since. Not all addicts have the same outcome as me, but I feel most, if not all, start using as a coping mechanism of some kind.
So how can we close the disparity? I think by giving the same access to all people regardless of their income level. How this can be accomplished is what I am not sure of. So, my question to you is: What do you think is the most important thing needed to lessen the gap and how do we as a country move forward in executing it?