Giving an Arm and a Leg to Fix a Broken Finger - Writers Forum

krazyklassykat · 05-05-2008, 10:47 AM

That is the title of the essay that I'm writing for English 101. Here are the tips that the instructor gave:

A good transactional essay has the following qualities:

*Has an introduction that begins broadly, contains all the logical parts of your thesis statement, and narrows to and ends with the thesis statment.
*It has a thesis statement which accounts for audience, activity (objective), and goal.
*The body of the essay is arranged in separate parts with clear topic sentences.
*It has a conclusion that makes further recommendations about how the audience might achieve the goal.
RULE: The audience must often see a personal connection to the "need" before it is persuaded to act.

The catch is, I have to use only personal experiences. I knew from the start that it would be difficult to persuade an audience of a national or global problem using only my experiences, but I gave it a shot.

So, I'd like to know if you think it fits the teacher's requirements, and if it's convincing, coherent, well-organized, grammatically correct, etc. Also, I want to make sure I don't get too emotionally involved, and remember to focus on the technicalities of the issues. He also requires that our introduction use the syllogism, A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. Basically, I have to start off with a statement everyone can agree with, and narrow it down to my argument. It seems a bit choppy to me, and a little like I'm talking to kindergartners, rather than my intended audience of government officials... but I tried. Let me know what you think.
Thanks!

Giving an Arm and a Leg to Fix a Broken Finger

Health is extremely important to all people. In America, most people require health insurance in order to pay for medical attention. Many Americans, however, cannot afford health insurance. As a result, many people in this nation do not receive health care when they need it, and end up paying large sums of money yearly for a procedure they had decades ago. In addition, many medical services are not worth their cost because they are not done properly. To solve this problem, the national government should allocate more money into health care so American citizens can stay healthy without being indebted for life.

One problem with the American health system is the availability (or lack thereof) of services. This problem is often seen in small or rural towns. My hometown is small and isolated, and as a result, I have had many experiences with a lack of doctors or medical attention. My mother could not find work in that town, because her job is to monitor the nerves of a patient when he or she is having spinal surgery, and the city hospital did not perform spinal surgeries. I myself could not find a single psychiatrist in the town, and had to teleconference with a psychiatrist from a neighboring city instead. Many people I knew from school had to travel out of town when they needed a specialist such as a pulmonologist or a pediatric oncologist; we simply don't have any of those doctors in town. Worst of all, victims of serious accidents are often choppered to another city, which takes valuable time that the victim may not have.

Another problem with the United States health care is the poor quality of many practices. One experience that stands out vividly in my mind is of a nightmare ER visit in my hometown. I had been having a slight pain in my lower left abdominal area for days, and decided to go to the ER when I started to worry that it could be appendicitus. I told the triage nurse that my pain level was only about 2 out of 10, but I was still admitted before a man who looked like he was about to pass out from pain. After I was admitted, I was told that I would be given a CT scan. I had assumed that I would be given an ultrasound first, because this seemed easier, and I told the ER doctor so. She snottily replied, "Easier for YOU, sure. But this is cheaper." Pumping me full of iodine and making me drink bottles of chalky smoothies to light up my insides was cheaper than rubbing a wand over my belly? More likely, the doctor did not want to bother with calling in an ultrasound technician. So she caused me pain and discomfort just because she was lazy. The nurse that came to put in an IV for the iodine increased my pain exponentially. She remarked that my veins were small, and I retorted that that was because no one had let me drink any water. When she attempted to put the IV in my hand, she came up against a valve, and just kept stabbing. That is probably the worst physical pain I have ever experienced, and I have a tattoo. After this incident I was in pieces emotionally, and was having a lot of trouble drinking the nasty substance the doctor had given me. No one was reassuring or helpful, however. The doctor actually reprimanded me for making a big deal out of it, and called me a baby. Finally, I had the CT scan and was informed that I had an ovarian cyst the size of a softball - something that an ultrasound could have shown three hours, two bottles of paste, and several pricks in the arm earlier. At the end of the day, I was sent home with Vicodin, even though I had told them my pain from the cyst was minimal. If there was any valid reason for giving me the pain medication, it was for the pain that the DOCTORS had caused me. I am not the only person to have experienced things like this in my hometown. A girl I met at school had almost died when she was little, because every doctor insisted that she had the stomach flu, when really she had rotavirus and was quickly fading from dehydration. When my mom had surgery for a ruptured disc, she mysteriously developed a hole in her small intestine immediately afterward. These kinds of things did not only happen in my hometown, either. My mother once worked with a surgeon in New York who had taken out a healthy kidney, instead of the cancerous one, causing the eventual death of the patient. In addition, she says that anesthesiologists often don't do their job properly, and the patient may wake up mid-surgery to excruciating pain and the horrifying prospect of being unable to open their taped-shut eyes. Here in Washington, my mother had to wait her turn in the Emergency Room while she was bleeding copiously from her hystorectomy incision, which had been opened up by a dog bite.

Perhaps the most overwhelming problem with health care in the United States is the cost of services. People who do not have health insurance in this country are basically screwed. I have seen it many times. I have insurance from my step-dad, and my half-brother has survivor's benefits health insurance from our father, but my step-brother does not have insurance. Too many times have I seen him red-faced and sniffling, while my step-mom says, "If it's not better in two days, then I'll take him to the doctor." Most people just don't go to the doctor, if there's any chance their symptoms will disappear on their own, because they know they can't afford the cost of health care. An ex boyfriend of mine developed a hole in his lung, and his mother declined treatment because she had already spent too much money getting his chest pain checked out. The insurance that my mother, step-father, and I share does not cover Emergency Room visits, and as a result we are still in debt from some of these visits. Immediately after my mother had been bitten by our dog and was bleeding from her incision, she would not let my grandmother call an ambulance, because the fare would be more than we could afford. We will be paying the money for her surgery for several more months before we have it paid off. My boyfriend's mother has hepatitis C and cannot afford treatment for it; therefore she cannot work and sinks even deeper into the pit of poverty. On the other hand, a friend of mine from Canada said that his wife's emergency C-section and subsequent hospitalization would have bankrupt them, if not for the socialized health policy practiced in Canada.

It is clear that health care is a problem in America; if one person can have so many bad experiences with medical care, there must be an even higher instance of these problems in the entire nation. Most people seem to be at a loss when it comes to solving this problem. The solution is simple, however: Apportion more money into health care. Perhaps if less of the national budget went into building comfortable jails or constructing weapons for war, there would be enough left to keep Americans healthy. I propose that some money be moved around in order to fix this serious problem before it becomes any worse.

Note: I will correct errors as I see them or they are pointed out, so don't worry if you point out something that is no longer there.

Olly Buckle · 05-06-2008, 02:20 PM

Forty looks and no replies? Why is that I thought? Well for most of us it's an instant turn off when we see it's some one's home work and think "I am not going to do that for them"
Your spelling and grammar seem fine, I am unsure whether you fulfill your teacher's requirements, you can check that out ok for yourself I should think. My main criticism is that you draw general conclusions from anecdotal evidence and the bit about comfortable jails and weapons of war reeks of value judgment, which is fine if the reader agrees with your values.

krazyklassykat · 05-06-2008, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Forty looks and no replies? Why is that I thought? Well for most of us it's an instant turn off when we see it's some one's home work and think "I am not going to do that for them"
Your spelling and grammar seem fine, I am unsure whether you fulfill your teacher's requirements, you can check that out ok for yourself I should think. My main criticism is that you draw general conclusions from anecdotal evidence and the bit about comfortable jails and weapons of war reeks of value judgment, which is fine if the reader agrees with your values.

I'm not asking anyone to do my homework. I love how this whole community is so cynical to always assume that. AS YOU CAN SEE, I have already written the whole essay. I am asking for criticism, which, I think, is the general point of this particular forum. I don't look at this as homework, I look at it as a piece of work that I want to make as good as possible, and not for a good grade, because I CARE.

I will gladly take into account your criticism about the value judgement. I guess it is off the point. As for drawing conclusions from anectodal evidence, that is all I'm allowed to do. I would love to be able to research this stuff, but I can't, for this essay.

Olly Buckle · 05-07-2008, 06:45 PM

I know you have done the essay, I appreciate that, I am not one of the forty who looked and said nothing, personally I think it a sensible thing to get as many people as possible to look at your work critically. I would suggest that you will achieve this best by not prefacing it in any way.
You should not be allowed to draw general conclusions from anecdotal evidence, it is totally wrong practice, perhaps suggest that the negative perceptions highlighted by such evidence warrant a larger scale investigation to see if the dissatisfaction is more general, even suggest that you believe this to be the case, but don't make assertions without evidence.

krazyklassykat · 05-07-2008, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I know you have done the essay, I appreciate that, I am not one of the forty who looked and said nothing, personally I think it a sensible thing to get as many people as possible to look at your work critically. I would suggest that you will achieve this best by not prefacing it in any way.
You should not be allowed to draw general conclusions from anecdotal evidence, it is totally wrong practice, perhaps suggest that the negative perceptions highlighted by such evidence warrant a larger scale investigation to see if the dissatisfaction is more general, even suggest that you believe this to be the case, but don't make assertions without evidence.

Well, the essay after the next one will be taking this same subject and doing research on it. I guess with this one he's teaching us to be con artists? I know, drawing conclusions from only your experiences doesn't exactly make sense. But it can be done.