1

Maddison Ward

Professor Perkins

ENGL 1302.910

11 July, 2022

Annotated Bibliography

Kaestner, Robert, and Darren Lubotsky. “Health Insurance and Income Inequality.” The Journal

of Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 2, 2016, pp. 53–77. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/

stable/43783707. Accessed 9 Jul. 2022.

This article by Robert Kaestner and Darren Lubotsky went in-depth into the income

inequality that exists within the healthcare and insurance industry. They discussed how

participation has changed throughout the years in various programs such as Medicaid,

Medicare, CHIP, and the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. To model the income

inequality in the system, Kaestner and Lubotsky displayed graphs and tables of the non-

elderly and elderly citizens that use the government-provided healthcare coverage and

their income in proportion. They also discussed alternative insurance methods such as

employer-provided insurance and the value of it compared to the value of that provided

by the systems put in place to help those below the poverty level. The journal article was

thorough and informative in analyzing the income discrepancies between various forms

of insurance and how the healthcare crisis in the US disproportionately affects those with

a lower income who don’t fall under the poverty level but also don't make a higher

income.


I thought this article was very valuable. It gave a lot of really great information along

with a strong argument for a change to the current healthcare system we live with in the

United States. The healthcare industry was modeled along with the income levels of

families in the country and it helped to visualize how the families who sit above the

poverty level are affected so much more heavily than those who fall below it or than

those who are well above it. It was full of strong details that could support an argument

of the healthcare system being corrupt and deeply in need of change.

Beckfield, Jason, et al. “Healthcare Systems in Comparative Perspective: Classification,

Convergence, Institutions, Inequalities, and Five Missed Turns.” Annual Review of

Sociology, vol. 39, 2013, pp. 127–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43049629.

Accessed 10 Jul. 2022.

This article went into detail on the topics that aren’t typically discussed within arguments

on the healthcare system in the United States today. The author distinguished various

kinds of healthcare systems in several countries and how they are funded. Beckfield

discusses the inequalities between the United States and other countries in chronic

illnesses due to the lack of medical intervention. It takes a deep dive into how to

converge old and new ideas to create a healthcare system that works for all. It discusses

the relational, cultural, postnational, institutional, and mechanismic turns that guide the

current healthcare system and it concludes with the argument that income inequality in

healthcare is widely overlooked and the consequences are significant.

I thought this article was very well-developed in its argument that healthcare should be

better and I enjoyed the in-depth discussion of the categories we shouldn’t be



overlooking in order to make this system work for all. It’s an argument many people

have all the time, but they brought up new perspectives and challenged the way I thought

about the healthcare system. They took a new spin on the “accessible medical care for

all” idea and they looked at various facts to help guide their argument. This article used

logos very effectively with its fact-based argument to the reader and it used kairos to

time exactly when to add in an ethos-based argument to pull the reader into a debate

that’s been brewing for decades. Overall, this resource is reliable and it’s backed up with

evidence-based claims that guide the reader to develop their own conclusions that the

healthcare system is in desperate need of a reboot.

Barnes, Elizabeth. “Valuing Disability, Causing Disability.” Ethics, vol. 125, no. 1, 2014, pp. 88–

113. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/677021. Accessed 10 Jul. 2022.

Elizabeth Barnes dissects the differences between disabled people and how society views

them along with how certain campaigns view the differences within the community.

Some differences are coined to be a slight difference or even a greater ability than the

majority of the population while some differences are looked down upon or viewed as

making the person with the disability a lower ranking than those without. She

approaches each viewpoint with its strengths and weaknesses and offers examples of

different people with different conditions and how they’re viewed by people with

separate beliefs. She provides a strong argument for why ableism should be eradicated.

This article is fueled by ethos. Every piece of Elizabeth Barnes’ argument is steeped in

emotions and provides excellent examples of how certain viewpoints on the disabled

community could make people who are members of the community feel. She offered a


really solid argument and it was a valuable argument on how the world can change by

simply changing perspective. She was unbiased in her approach and truly spotlighted

each viewpoint's flaws and positive attributes.

Chaturvedi, Sameer. “Culture and Disability: Unheard Voices of Disabled People.” Indian

Anthropologist, vol. 49, no. 1, 2019, pp. 67–82. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/

26855092. Accessed 11 Jul. 2022.

This article by Sameer Chaturvedi went in depth to explain how the disabled community

is marginalized and how culture and politics are to blame. He provides examples of

cultures that trap disabled people into a certain identity and he shows how that can

provide a harder future for them. He focuses on the voice given to the disabled members

of cultural communities and how they’re allowed to use that voice to help themselves

into better situations. He discusses Buddhism and the idea that having a disabled child is

due to bad karma and how that general view of the disabled community can shape their

voices forever. He argues for normalizing disability in pop culture and providing a

proper outlet for disabled voices to be heard.

I thought Chaturvedi’s article was insightful and the use of logos helped him achieve

that. He provided strong examples of historical cultural norms that needed to be changed

in order to get disabled people into a position of personal power to help themselves. He

was strong in his argument that disabled people deserved to be normalized and he

provided case studies as evidence for how that change could improve the current

situation for the disabled community on a global scale. The article was deep and

powerful and left nothing left unsaid.



Chen, Wen-Yi, et al. “Is the United States in the Middle of a Healthcare Bubble?” The European

Journal of Health Economics, vol. 17, no. 1, 2016, pp. 99–111. JSTOR, http://

www.jstor.org/stable/24774116. Accessed 11 Jul. 2022.

In this article, the authors used examples to show the United States and its healthcare

system compared to other countries with publicly financed healthcare systems. The

study’s goal was to define the “bubble” in the US healthcare system that sets the price of

the goods or services provided and the value of said services apart. They did a full study

and concluded that the “bubbles” found within the market were due to Medicaid and

Medicare costs in times of major recessions or inflation and those spending bubbles are

only bound to grow.

This article provided a really good background for its study and the research propelled

their argument forward that the US healthcare system isn’t sustainable. They showed

graphs and tables of the exact growth of medical cost and they provided a solid

foundation for the argument that publicly financed systems actually cost the government

a lot when they could be using the money to fund medical care for all. It gave me a lot of

knowledge about the system and how it works to profit the companies that support it.

The argument was solely logos-based due to the fact that it was a research article and

very little emotion or opinion went into them proving their point that the United States

Healthcare System is bound to fall apart.

Yoe, Jonathan. “Would a Medicare-for-All System Lower Healthcare Costs in the United

States?” Monthly Labor Review, 2020, pp. 1–2. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/

26896717. Accessed 11 Jul. 2022.



Jonathan Yoe illustrates the factors causing the United States healthcare costs to remain

so high compared to other countries who are able to provide their citizens a lower cost.

He took Canada as an example and their ability to make pharmaceutical goods cheaper

than the same goods in the United States. He explained the market and provided

evidence for why the United States couldn’t lower the cost of pharmaceuticals without

fear of global repercussions.

I thought this article was great. It was concise and used logos in its argument. Yoe

remained fact-based and provided all of the necessary information needed to understand

the global pharmaceutical market, but he also kept it short and sweet to not lose the

reader. It was an interesting piece that defended the US healthcare system’s downfalls by

outlining the reasons for its ranking worldwide. I thought the author took great detail to

get exactly his point across and nothing more. It was a very useful read.

Pellegrini, Lawrence C., et al. “The US Healthcare Workforce and the Labor Market Effect on

Healthcare Spending and Health Outcomes.” International Journal of Health Care

Finance and Economics, vol. 14, no. 2, 2014, pp. 127–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/

stable/24571845. Accessed 11 Jul. 2022.

The authors of this article dive into the framework and history of the US medical system

and what has driven it to be what it is today. They go into private healthcare sectors

along with the government-provided healthcare coverage and the health status of the

people who use each of the systems. They did a study and found that during major times

of unemployment and the outreach for sources such as government-provided healthcare,

there was a major decline in the health of individuals and a greater chance of death.


I thought this article was so informative from its background information to the results of

the research. It provided concrete evidence that the current healthcare system doesn’t

work to the advantage of the people using it. When people needed the help of a public

healthcare service, they had long wait periods and obstacles preventing them from

receiving assistance which caused people to actually die at higher rates. This is telling of

a government with a for-profit healthcare system. I thought this article was strong with

its logos-based argument that healthcare in the United States affects us all and change is

necessary.

Zhu, Ling, and Jennifer H. Clark. “‘Rights without Access’: The Political Context of

Inequality in Health Care Coverage in the U.S. States.” State Politics & Policy

Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2, 2015, pp. 239–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/

24643831. Accessed 11 Jul. 2022.

This article by Ling Zhu and Jennifer Clark aims to outline the political issues at work

that make our healthcare system work how we see it today. They go into the parties in

the political system and how our healthcare system that should have nothing to do with

politics has somehow been made into a political issue. They also discuss how the

political system isn’t made with racial diversity in mind so the politicized healthcare

system disproportionately affects people of color. The research study that was conducted

looked into the health of people in racially diverse locations versus places that didn’t

have racial diversity.

I thought this article was a fresh take on an issue that I’ve done a lot of studying on. With

racial undertones, the healthcare system disproportionately affects those of color.



Although I don’t have experience with that side of the healthcare program in the United

States, I do see how much children with disabilities are looked over and with this article,

I’m understanding how much families of other races struggle to gain access to healthcare

which should be a human right. This article and research study was strong and grounded

in logos with a fact-based argument about how families of color are negatively affected

by a healthcare system that works against them.

Fabian T. Pfeffer, and Robert F. Schoeni. “How Wealth Inequality Shapes Our Future.” RSF: The

Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 6, 2016, pp. 2–22.

JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2016.2.6.01. Accessed 12 Jul. 2022.

The authors tell the story of three white teenagers and the wealth disparities between the

three of them and how that affected their future. The authors, Pfeffer and Schoeni, then

add in the stories of teenagers of color and the race inequalities that make their stories

different. They explore topics like political representation, economic growth, wealth

gaps, and the history and future of wealth inequality in the United States. The article

compares different causes for inequality in resource access in the United States and how

that can affect people on a personal level.

This article was a great resource because it used ethos and logos very well. The article

started off with emotional stories about teenagers who were affected by their parents’

wealth and status and adding in the teenagers of color added a juxtaposition of the

resources they had the ability to access and the future available to them. The authors

provided substantial research and fact-based data, but the personal stories that the article

began with set this article apart.



Gruber, Jonathan. “Delivering Public Health Insurance Through Private Plan Choice in the

United States.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 31, no. 4, 2017, pp. 3–22.

JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44425379. Accessed 12 Jul. 2022.

This article by Jonathan Gruber discusses privatized healthcare in the United States and

the various programs within that umbrella. He discusses the structure of public

healthcare and how it’s changed to support a private healthcare system. He also dives

into the Affordable Care Act and how it’s working to improve our current healthcare

system that’s leaving so many behind.

I thought this article was great. Gruber really demonstrated the issues within the

healthcare system in the United States while also providing solutions for the issues at

hand. He used facts in a logs-based argument to appeal to the logic of the audience. I

thought his argument was strong without being too persuasive. He did a great job of

giving the facts and leaving them there for the reader to analyze.