Reflection Blog 10

I thought that reading chapter 16 was a little bit of a downer. Death is a topic that most people don’t just want to talk about, because it can be hard to understand for some, and very stressful to think about. Reading about the different traditions different religions participate in was interesting. I never knew that when someone who is Jewish dies, they cover mirrors. I have been to ceremonies where dirt is thrown on the grave though. Death is a hard topic to talk about. When you hear of a loved one passing away, it is hard to find the right words to say to console someone, and maybe there really aren’t words. Death is easier to accept when the person is older, or they have a terminal illness. The person who is expecting to die has had the time to make amends with family members and accept what is coming and sometimes they have made some of the plans after their death. A death that is not expected is the hardest for families to cope with, because it is unexpected.

The book also talks about euthanasia. Euthanasia can be active or passive. Active meaning the person with the terminal illness takes a lethal dose of medication, passive meaning life support or life extending medication is withheld. This can be taking someone off life support, taking out a feeding tube, or discontinuing therapeutic drug use (chemotherapy).  Ethically, not everyone agrees with euthanasia and I can understand why. There is a bar graph in the book that shows how many lethal doses were prescribed vs how many people died taking the lethal doses. Rates of how many prescriptions were given has been on the rise since 2006, with 2010 having the highest number of lethal prescriptions given. I know that there are a lot of things people have to do to be able to get the medication, but I think that the number of people not taking the medication is too high, if the medication is going to be given to them, they should be 100% sure this is what they want to do , and maybe people wanting to receive the lethal dose of medication should have to wait a little longer, so they are more sure in their decision.

Reflection Blog 9

I found the information in the article “As Good As it Gets” to be very interesting. I really liked hearing about the differences in health care between the U.S. and the Netherlands. This article does make it seem like health care in the Netherlands is really good. When hearing about the perks it does sound really nice, little to no copayments for medication, and they don’t pay very much, or anything for serious medical treatment. Here in the U.S. people can pay thousands of dollars yearly for their medications, and even more for serious medical treatments. The article compared when two different people had major surgery, one in the Netherlands, and one in the U.S. The one in the Netherlands didn’t have to pay anything, not a single dime. The person in the U.S. had to pay 20% of what the total costs was, which could be thousands, and that is not including the medication. One might ask how do the Dutch afford this type of health care system? The answer: Taxes. The income tax rate of a household earning 60,000 a year is 52%. That’s right 52%. The U.S. income tax rate for 60,000 a year for a household of four is 25%. Another difference between the health care systems is the wait time before major operations. In the U.S. a person does not need to wait long before getting the medical treatment they need, a day or two at the most. In the Netherlands those awaiting major surgery can wait for 14 weeks before a time slot becomes available. In the U.S. we pay to be able to have prompt surgery. I think it would be interesting to see if this type of proposal as made to the U.S citizens, having the majority of your health care paid for, but paying extremely high taxes if they would go for it, for the whole country to pay each others medical bills through taxes. I am not so sure if I would want to go for it myself.

Reflection Blog 8

In reading the article “Is there Love After Baby?”, I thought it was interesting that before the baby was born, both parents saw themselves as having a larger portion of themselves being the partner/lover. After the baby was born, this was the piece of the pie that shrunk or order to make room for the parent piece of the pie to get bigger.  This study showed that parents who maintained and kept the partner/lover portions of the pie larger had less parenting stress. This finding actually makes sense though. In order to be successful parents, or at least have less parenting stress, you need to have a good foundation. That foundation is built off of the parent’s relationship. If the parents forget about each other, or care less for each other then it makes sense that working together as a team to rear their child would be harder. I cannot speak from experience because I don’t have kids yet, but I can imagine that it would be hard. I have seen our friends relationships change, how the mother stays home with the kids while the father goes out because he doesn’t want to give up any of his social life, but it seems to work for them because they have established a date night once a week and that way they get time together without their kids.

                If I could do a separate study, I would want to know if the length of marriage before having children has any affect on what happens to most couples after having children, meaning if the couple has a more established relationship, is it easier for them to get the hang of balancing being the parent and being a partner/lover. I would also want to know if any of the disagreements mentioned in the article, (the mother doing more of the house work and child work than expected) change if the father is the stay at home parent and the mother is the one who has a full time job, or if there is not a difference.