Dr. Lauren Gutierrez: The Issues Of Social Work

I believe healthcare reform is a waste of time and money but I also see that it can be beneficial to many uninsured Americans. First of all, health care costs keep rising and in 2011 the average cost for a family of four increased by 7.3% or $19,393. This is double the cost estimated in 2003, and by 2030 payroll taxes will cover only 38% of Medicare Costs and the rest will be added to our already enormous budget deficit.

Social Work is a career defined as “work carried out by trained personal with the aim of alleviating the conditions of those in need of help or welfare”. Social work varies in several fields, social workers work as part of multi-disciplinary teams with child welfare organizations, adoption and foster care agencies, hospitals, schools, prisons, mental health institutions, and more. Social work may leave the impression that it’s an easy field because it is assumed that all social workers do is serve others and manage paperwork but that is only a small chunk of the job. Social workers must deal with the ethical and emotional aspect of helping others. As a social worker, it is critical to comply with the National Association of Social Workers

I have yet to encounter a social worker who entered the profession for acclaim or prestige. It is a demanding career with long hours and ceaseless paperwork. Social workers are frequently overburdened in addition to being underpaid. Occasionally, they witness agonizing tragedy, fundamentally changing them. Having worked in social services for a number of years, I have had these experiences.

Healthcare reform was designed to help people of middle class to below poverty status afford healthcare insurance, in addition to providing quality care for everyone. When the “Affordable Care Act” rolled out, there were a lot of concerns in regards to the cost and mandating that everyone acquire insurance. The objective was to provide access to low cost insurance; unfortunately, some people remained uninsured, as a matter of fact they were unable to afford health insurance due to the amount of wages they earned.

From the humble beginning of Social Work there have been many people who have tirelessly worked, fought, and dedicated their life advocating for the people in our world who are disadvantaged. Furthermore, many of these people have been women who not only were strong enough to fight for the rights of others, but also had to fight the forces whom thought that women where in some way second hand citizens themselves. These women were brave and determined enough to break out of the box that society placed them in, and stand up for the social injustices that they seen taking place, and try to make a difference. Of the many women from the early days of Social Work none fought harder for social reform than Grace Abbott. Grace Abbott spent her life

The ethical principle set forth by the NASW states “social workers challenge social injustice (NASW, 2008).” Stephanie was a

For healthcare coverage to work a healthcare system needs to be in place. The biggest thing we need to take away from this is whether healthcare is a commodity or human right and that it’s affordable. The people want the healthcare to be reform, but reformed in a better direction than what the Affordable Health Care Act is presenting. The people don’t want Washington to decide what type of care they need; the decision should be left upon the people.

The Key Themes assignment was a unique assignment that will be attached to the end of this paper. It was unique in the fact that we looked at the broad range of services that social service workers dealt with and talked about which populations benefited from these services the most. It helped me gain a more clinical understanding of the different functions of the services provided by social service workers. Multiculturalism Niagara College’s Multiculturalism course was full to the brim of knowledge spanning Discrimination, racism, sexuality, and immigration along with much more. The first thing I learned in the course were about multiculturalism and ethnocentrism.

First, having affordable health care in the United States will decrease the number of uninsured. Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare has decreased the number of uninsured people yet, there are still people without acquiring health insurance. According to The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which is a non-profit organization focusing on the national health issue and serving as a non-partisan source, individuals below the poverty line are at the highest risk of being uninsured. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage, but did not because it was too expensive (KFF). The cost of health insurance is still an ordeal for people to get covered. The U.S government needs to consider that it is disproportionate

According to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), 16.4 million of the previously uninsured are now insured (2015). The agency attributes this increase to the ability of young adults to stay on their parent’s plans until age 26, the Marketplace, and Medicaid expansions. However, while 12.3 million of the newly insured are the result of Medicaid expansions, only 28 states have expanded Medicaid (HHS, 2015). Many remain uninsured. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (Garfield, Damico, Cox, Claxton, & Levitt, 2015), 32.3 million nonelderly people remain uninsured. The foundation estimates that 15.7 million (nearly half) of these people are eligible for assistance through Medicaid or Marketplace subsidies. For others, reasons for remaining insured include their states refusing to expand Medicaid, having an income too high to receive a subsidy, or their immigration status (Garfield et al., 2015). The ACA has been effective in improving the number of those who have health coverage, however it has not achieved 100% coverage. Millions continue to lack coverage, including those who are eligible to receive aid. In addition to this, partisan politics has prevented the expansion of Medicaid in all states. There is also a portion of the population whose income may not be enough to pay for insurance but is too high to receive government

There are Currently 32 million people without health insurance in the United States. This means that roughly 83 per cent of citizens have to live day by day hoping they won’t get sick. For this reason, President Obama signed the U.S health reform bill into law. The health reform will make health care more affordable for citizens. Employers with more than 50 employees will be forced to provide coverage for all, or they will have to pay a fine. It will also make health insures more responsible. For example, health insurance carriers are forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and from canceling policies because someone gets sick. It will also expand

As implemented throughout communities, Americans have struggled with the rising cost of health care for many years from low income households to upper and middle class individual groups. These groups have had insurance or obtained by any means of the working purposes for most and at

Now this work will attempt to examine the different approaches that feminists apply to social work. According to Collins English Dictionary, “social work” means “social services that give help and advice to the poor, the elderly, and families with problems.” (www.collinslanguage.com). It is very hard to define social work as its work is so varied and sparse within society today. Feminist social workers tend to work more with women and help them to understand and alleviate their problems. Dominelli (1997: 246) postulates “ I define feminist social work as a form of social work practice which takes gendered inequality and it’s elimination as the starting point for working

Consequently, in the professional literature, there is a wide gap to be filled in the need for a critical perspective within the profession. We feel that the important contributions made by outside groups- Gay liberation, the women’s movement, mental patients’ union, trade unions and tenants’ associations- reflect lack of confidence in social workers, usually with good reasons. It is not intended to demoralize those social workers who are themselves conditioned and controlled by the very institutional structures, in which they work, but to make them aware of contradictions, and to assist them to develop critical action.

In 2009 it was found that 56% of those who have more than one job are women, and this number is still increasing (Ferrao, 2017). This fact made me question as to why is that my aunt has to work three-part time jobs just to feed her children? Yet, most men are able provide enough for their families with just one job (Ferrao, 2017). Through this question I came to realize that many women are not struggling with multiple jobs because they are less educated, or less capable than men. In fact, it was found that more women than men are likely to graduate from college (Ferrao, 2017). These statistics make it clear that a woman’s personal life is interconnected with the social and political structures of society. Thus, my paper will be discussing the feminist approaches to social work, because this approach puts an emphasis on the structural gender inequalities and multiple intersecting oppressions women face (Dominelli, 2002).