What I learned

I learned many things from taking this course. In the beginning I knew little about blogging. First and foremost, I learned the rudimentary skills on how to start and present your blog in a manner that is pleasing to the eye. Bloggers cannot just throw words onto the page and expect the reader to do the rest. It takes time and creativity to utilize a blog in a way that will keep readers coming back. I also learned that when it comes to your blog it is not really important for you to be knowledgeable on an array of topics. To have a successful blog you need to pick one niche and then beat the horse to death essentially. When you have found the topic, it is important then to research and read all you can so that you can know what you are writing to others. When a person does this, the blog becomes exciting. Even if the blog is over something like health care.

Back to the problems surround Moral Hazard and the ACA. 

On the collegiate level, moral hazard is comparable to a student who has all costs for tuition, books and housing expenses already paid by someone else. 

The bills will be paid even if the student decides to skip class, homework or other collegiate responsibilities. Moral hazard states, the student in the situation above is more likely to avoid working as dilligently as he should in order to suceed. 

Conversely, if the student is paying his way for college he will be more apt to go to class, study more vigerously and eventually graduate.  

  

In the case of the Afforadable Care Act, the propensity for moral hazard seems to be highly probable with the insuree taking greater risk knowing that the insurer must provide coverage. The root cause of this problem shows itself in the pre-existing conditions policy. 

If an individual can claim a pre-existing condition and cannot be turned away then what is the incentive to get insurance and pay premiums until an accident or injury occurs?

Think about it...

Mazetti, NYT Reporter

Mark Mazetti

On Tuesday, at constitution hall, Mark Mazetti spoke on the campus of University of Central Oklahoma. Mazetti is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times who covers the National Security Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency and more. Mazetti graduated from Duke University in 1974 with a bachelors degree in public policy and history. From there, Mazetti went on to graduate with a masters from Oxford University in modern history.

Among other things, Mazetti talked about the advantages and disadvantages of media and how it has changed the face of Journalism.

"Time becomes the opponent of quality."

"More than ever the CIA has been consumed...with man-hunting." said Mazetti. He believes that the Pentagon has changed and turned into the CIA, mainly gathering intelligence and the CIA has changed into the Pentagon by conducting missions and killings.

The Church committee made it illegal for the CIA to go out and commit assassinations around the world.

Mazetti's most recent book is, "The Way of the Knife."

One of the issues that the ACA could cause for the American people would be moral hazard.

Although many agree that the antiquated health care system needs reform, opinions differ on how it should be done. "Good intentions doesn't make good policy," said Tom Emerick, UCO graduate and current President of Emerick Consulting and co-founder of Edison Health. "Insurance doesn't work that way."

Emerick believes that the ACA will have two dominant problems that would make the system unsustainable. The first reason the system could fail is because it has been created to cause moral hazard. 

"Moral hazard refers here to the tendency of the insurance protection o alter an individuals motive to prevent loss. This affects expenses for the insurer and therefore, ultimately, the cost of coverage for individuals." said Harvard economics professor Steven Shavell. So moral hazard, essentially says that one party is enabled to take more extreme risks with the knowledge that they will be covered regardless and the other party must incur the cost.

This is a problem since individuals can now be covered with pre-existing conditions.

Dr. Kurt Hochenauer has been blogging for over 10 years.
- Tries to blog 3 times per week.
- Wants to influence the political conversation in Oklahoma through his blog

Listening to Dr. Kurt Hochenauer speaking during blogging class. He worked for the Oklahoman. Wanting to voice a more liberal perspective he started up his own blog. His blog went from 15k unique views a month to around 3 to 4k currently.  

Possible sources for future paper:

1) WWW

2) Jessica Merrell-Miller

3) Tom Emerick