Contraception

     Women preventive care, including birth control, is a basic healthcare. Prior the health care law, a significant number of Americans did not have access to affordable preventive care. However, before such beneficial policies are effective, they are a subjective of the political divide. For example, Altman Anna of the New York Times magazine reports that Republicans oppose the government's move to offer free contraceptives stating the various advantages for over-the-counter medication. For example, they argue that it is convenient because it saves time and money to the user. Additionally, it reduces unnecessary medical appointment and fewer missed work days, especially to rural workers, such as miners, where “doctors are not ready available” (Altman, 2014).
    The above argument by the republicans contradicts in various aspects. First, over-the-counter medications are not convenient in the long-run. For example, not all families or women budget for over-the-counter medications. As a result, they use money for other purposes to purchase the medication. Therefore, free contraceptives by the government, either through insurance or employers’ health care plan, enable women and family to effectively budget the expenses. Additionally, through doctor’s appointment, women access to information that is not available through over-the-counter prescriptions. As a result, physicians assist women in making informed decisions (Planned Parenthood, n. d.).
    Finally, even though a significant number of women between the age of 15 and 44 use contraceptives, most believe that health care plans should cover birth control. The above is not only a belief but also true under the Affordable Care Act. The regulation provides that women’s preventive care services, such as screening services for cancer and mammograms, should be at no cost sharing for some health care plans. Additionally, it recommends free preventive services for people on Medicaid. As a result, it recognizes the need for free preventive health care for women (HHS, 2013).

Scarier Than Ebola

    On October 14, 2014, Frank Bruni an Op-Ed columnist in the New York Times newspaper wrote an article titled Scarier than Ebola. In that article he said: American panic really well, if they can only shift their eyes away from the media coverage of Ebola in Texas and answer the following question have you had your flu shot? Are you planning on one?

  

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, large numbers of Americans that were killed by the influenza flu which is a familiar disease and could’ve been prevented. Thousands of Americans dies in car accidents because more than half of them don’t wear seat-belts based on the federal analysis of 2012. 

   

    We have clear answers about how to reduce risks but we proceed on either ignoring them or forgetting about them. Ebola is frightening and the entire world should take care of that crisis in Africa and the United States should look after it. Americans are searching for answers about transmission and prevention yet we already have such answers and we should look for them instead of worrying about our imminent exposure to Ebola. 

  

     Jeffrey Duchin, chairman of the public health committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America said that people are worrying a lot about things like Ebola that isn’t a general risk, if we just look at the causes of death in the United States everything is higher than Ebola. Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health said that there’s a lot of vaccine-preventable diseases yet a lot of people don’t want their children to take it. Gary Baum a Hollywood reporter said according to his report, the percentage of kids vaccinated in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are in line with immunization rates in developing countries like Chad and South Sudan. Finally, a Dallas pediatrician urged families to have their children vaccinated about diseases they can prevent and pointed out frequent hand washing. Ebola or no Ebola, it’s a responsible and frequently disregarded way to lessen health risks. 

   

     I find this article interesting to read, the arguments given are supported by numbers,facts and scientists. Ebola is mainly in Africa, there’s just one confirmed death case till now with Ebola in the United States, it’s just how the media points fingers to it and lights it up that makes the people stress and worry more about that disease. The media stimulates it to a point that now everyone thinks they’re infected with Ebola. People should simply get vaccinated and stay clean, this will clearly lower any health risk.

How America Helped ISIS

On October 1, 2014, Andrew Thompson a veteran of operation Iraqi freedom who served eight years in the United States military and Jeremi Suri a Professor at University of Texas Austin provided an argument on How America helped ISIS in the New York Times newspaper. The logical sequence and reasoning of how over time the United States helped Isis made the commentary pretty attractive. According to that commentary, a majority of top Islamic leaders, all former prisoners under the United States supervision with partnership with Iraq after 2003. Those extremists’ leaders were intending to attack the United States before their detention. While spending their time in prison, they had the chance to widen their fanatic way of thinking to other illiterate people who were not guilty of any violent crimes which made the prison at “Camp Bucca” listed as an example a recruitment for terrorism. So it went on, those quite few dangerous radicals affected plenty of innocent people. Extremist had the best shot of spreading their way of thinking since they were only separated by sectarian lines, it was very obvious to anyone but unluckily few American military leaders noticed. The moderate detainees were forced to listen to clerics advocating jihad and all feared of breaking any religious rules. Even though in 2007 American military leaders tried to separate terrorists from moderates’ detainees but it was too late the damage was done the extreme version of Islam was imposed on thousands of prisoners. The extremist ruled the prison, they physically assaulted all moderate detainee who refused to obey to their rules. In 2009, after “Camp Bucca” was closed, American still tried to identify the most dangerous detainees but the limited language skill and the poor record keeping led to failure. After the United State withdrew from Iraq the Islamic state under Iraqi custody were freed. In conclusion, large detention facilities only create the seeds for further radicalization and violence, the United States must convince its regional partners to avoid mixing radicals and moderates, and provide alternatives to prison for small-scale criminals or else we will be stuck in the same pattern over and over again. In my opinion this commentary is based on facts, numbers, names and logical observation which makes sense to me. This kind of terrorism can’t be spread from a day to another, it takes years and years to get that amount of population to believe in this type of theory. Finally, all political parties should take this issue very seriously, there is no winning or losing here, no getting elected, no debates, no popularity contest and no famous speeches, the only thing that comes out from such an organization is killing innocent, harmless and guiltless people.