Author: benedetto.23

Text Review – The Blind Side – Mary Benedetto

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The Blind Side film is based on the true story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American teen who is adopted by a wealthy, white family and later goes on to play eight seasons in the NFL. The film follows Oher from the time he is adopted to when he graduates high school and is accepted into the University of Mississippi to play football as an offensive lineman. However, the journey to that point in his life is far from simple. Having been in seven different institutions, lacking a proper education and place to call home, Oher is noticed by Leigh Anne Tuohy, a businesswoman whose daughter attends the same high school as him. After Tuohy’s initial conversation with Oher, he agrees to spend a night in her family’s home. After many trials and triumphs, Oher earns the grade point average to play football for his high school and is officially adopted by the Touhy family.

Throughout the film, we examine many injustices surrounding Oher. First, we are provided flashbacks to his adolescence in which he lived in poverty, resulting in social services taking him from his mother at the age of seven. When Touhy first sees Oher, he is picking up left-over food in the bleachers after a high school volleyball game; he has one plastic bag holding all of his belongings; and he tells Touhy, after she allows him to sleep in her spare bedroom, that he has never had his own bed.

When Touhy meets with her friends at a restaurant one day, they strike up a conversation about Oher in which her friends make unjust remarks that do not situate well with her. One friend mentions that her daughter, Collins, may be unsafe living under the same roof as Oher and another friend asks Touhy if taking Oher in is “another one of [her] charity cases”.

The concept of power is most prevalent throughout the film. Had it not been for the Touhy family’s status and wealth, Oher may have not earned the grades he had, graduated high school, or played football for Ole Miss. What makes the difference between the Touhy’s and any other family is the resources (for example, his high school tutor) they implemented for the betterment of Oher.

 

Sean Touhy (portrayed by Tim McGraw) and his wife, Leigh Anne (portrayed by Sandra Bullock) standing over Michael Oher (portrayed by Quinton Aaron).

Unequal Access to Healthcare in the U.S.

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Over the summer term, I completed a course titled, “U.S. Healthcare Policy and Delivery System” which expressed a large emphasis on the lack of proper access to healthcare for Americans. Today, many Americans struggle with obtaining healthcare for a variety of reasons. First, the U.S. does not utilize universal health coverage. Therefore, whether or not an individual is insured determines the quality of their care, thus, the access to proper care. For those individuals who do not have health insurance, all of their payments are to be made out-of-pocket. Out-of-pocket spending prevents many people from seeking healthcare as they do not wish to spend the full amount for a service. For example, I currently work at an optometry office in which the cost for a full comprehensive eye exam is $149. For those who have vision insurance, they might pay, at most, a $20 copayment. When informing potential patients of the $149 charge when not using vision insurance toward the exam, they often hesitate and ultimately, do not schedule an appointment with our office. In addition to the paying out-of-pocket option, uninsured individuals can either explore care from safety net providers or visit a hospital emergency room for acute illnesses. As you can see, these individuals do not have a lot of breathing room, so to speak. Another reason behind this inability to obtain healthcare is because there is a shortage of healthcare providers in rural areas. For those who live in remote areas and are uninsured, you can bet they are not taking advantage of healthcare services. They already have to pay out-of-pocket, visit the E.R., or seek care elsewhere, and then travel twenty to thirty minutes to a healthcare facility, that is, if they have a vehicle.

This is a large inconvenience and disservice to uninsured individuals. This is systemic injustice in the way that our healthcare system does not allow all citizens access to proper healthcare like countries such as: Germany and Australia, who do utilize universal health coverage. Factors such as household income and race/ethnicity determine someone’s access. In order for this to corrected, the ACA was implemented in 2010; however, millions of Americans remain uninsured today. The U.S. should make the switch to universal health coverage as other countries who do use it have better health outcomes amongst citizens.

As one of the factors that limit a person’s access to healthcare is race, this calls to mind John Lewis’ work, March, in which African-Americans were not granted equal access to just about anything that whites had access to in the 1960s. Even though Lewis does not address access to healthcare in the work, I performed my own research as to what this time period consisted of for African-Americans. According to The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 65, prior to 1964, whites were more likely to visit a physician in two years of more than African-Americans, regardless of income. Considering income, poor African-Americans were the least likely to see a physician in two+ years. For those lesser-income African-Americans who did visit a physician more regularly, they did so on average of 3.1 times per year; whereas whites did so on average 4.7 times per year, even though African-Americans are more susceptible to suffer from chronic illnesses and had a health status that they rated “poor or fair”.

 

https://www-jstor-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/stable/3349956?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents

Context Research Presentation- Week 4, Mary Benedetto

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This week we read Toni Morrison’s piece, “Recitatif”. This is a short story discussing the experience of two young girls, Twyla and Roberta, living in St. Bonny’s orphanage and their multiple experiences encountering each other after their short four months together as roommates.

Twyla, the narrator and protagonist, shares an account of a kitchen lady, named Maggie, that worked at St. Bonny’s while the two girls resided there. Maggie was mute and presumed deaf. One day, she cut through the orchard at St. Bonny’s and fell. Other female residents, who spent time hanging out at the orchard, laughed at her; Twyla and Roberta witnessed her fall and did not offer her help. When wondering if Maggie were deaf, Twyla called out to her, “Dummy!” and “Bow legs!” as she described Maggie’s legs being bent “like parentheses,” (2 Morrison).

This brings to mind how individuals with disabilities have been historically treated, as the beginning portion of the story takes place in the 1950s, according to litcharts.com. In eighteenth and nineteenth century America, it was the town’s duty to take care of disabled individuals. Almshouses were provided to house these individuals along with criminals (Meldon). However, living conditions were inadequate as they lacked cleanliness, were often congested and unmonitored, and men and women resided together. During the nineteenth century, the number of criminals housed in these facilities expanded, leading to even more overcrowding. As a result, the new residences occupied by those a part of the disabled community were “lunatic” asylums (Meldon).

Poorhouse from the eighteenth century; residential building used for individuals with disabilities and criminals in addition to almshouses.

Since 1857, laws and policies have been established to encourage societal involvement of individuals with disabilities (Smeltzer et al 1.) However, many of these initial policies did not address health concerns or health care accessibility; they focused more on housing and income support (Smeltzer et al. 2). Established in 1979, the Healthy People Initiative worked to monitor and encourage national health objectives, but, in terms of disability, only its prevention was communicated. In 2000, Healthy People 2010 addressed the national health objectives for those individuals with disabilities, including the importance of their welfare (Smeltzer et al. 2).

The recognition of the health of individuals with disabilities have come a long way since 2000, with the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The ACA provides these individuals with coverage for preventative care and the guarantee that they will not be refused health insurance for having a disability (Smeltzer et al 3).

CRP Works Cited