JHU POLITIK
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NOVEMBER 3, 2014
VOLUME XVI, ISSUE IX
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JHU POLITIK EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eliza Schultz MANAGING EDITOR Christine Server
HEAD WRITER Julia Allen
ASSISTANT EDITORS Katie Botto Dylan Etzel Preston Ge Abigail Sia
POLICY DESK EDITOR Mira Haqqani
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Diana Lee
WEBMASTER Ben Lu
COPY EDITOR Florence Noorinejad FACULTY ADVISOR Steven R. David
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MARKETING & PUBLICITY Maria Garcia
STAFF WRITERS Abigail Annear Olga Baranoff Arpan Ghosh Alexander Grable Rosellen Grant Rebecca Grenham Christine Kumar Shannon Libaw Robert Locke Corey Payne Juliana Vigorito
• November 3, 2014 • Volume XVI, Issue IX
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
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Week in Review: Economic Instability Shrenik Jain ’18 The Unaffordability of the Affordable Care Act Christine Server ’16 New Sexual Violence Policy, Same Problems Eliza Schultz ’15 The Rise of Anti-Science Helen Zhao ’16 Interview with Becky Li,
Chinese Student Studying in Hong Kong
Evan Harary ’16
The False Narrative of the Free Market Alexander Grable ’15
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Week in Review: Economic Instability by Shrenik Jain ’18, Contributing Writer Chiquita and Fyffes to Merge Global banana giant Chiquita has finished negotiations to acquire Irish banana firm Fyffes for over a billion dollars. The deal, which already has EU approval, will place the new Chiquitas-Fyffes company at the top of global banana production, with a 29 percent market share. Executives of both companies claim that the merger is not for the purpose of shirking registration in nations with high taxes, but rather because both firms would see increased production and decreased costs due to unified supply chains. The market viewed the transaction with optimism, and shares of both companies have jumped. However, some analysts have begun to doubt the viability of this strategy. The international banana trade is dominated by large conglomerates that have competed viciously with each other in the past. A United Nations study has documented increasing development in the second and third world leading to a squeeze on banana firms’ market share as they lose ground to a multitude of smaller, independent companies. Now the remaining conglomerates buy each other out in an attempt to remain dominant, but mergers are often costly, with many redundancies in supply chains that must be eliminated.
Oil Prices Plummet This week saw a sharp drop in the price of crude oil to around $85 a barrel. The price drop stemmed from a refusal of OPEC countries, namely Saudi Arabia, to cut production. Saudi Arabia is estimated to have about one-sixth of the world’s oil reserves, though its share of global oil production is rapidly declining in the face of the energy revolutions in nations such as the United States and Canada. Rather than cut oil production, OPEC countries agreed to accept a decrease in prices. Many OPEC nations have economies that are dependent on oil, among them Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela. Non-OPEC countries that depend on energy exports, such as Russia, are also under economic strain due to these measures.
EU Banks Fail Stress Test The newly-formed European Central Bank (ECB) carried out systematic “stress tests” on a multitude of EU banks to determine whether they were operating in a sustainable manner. The tests themselves were a milestone in the EU’s attempts to centralize and regulate the finances of member nations. The results of the tests, however, were not optimistic. Roughly one in five EU banks are not operating in a manner that would allow them to easily mitigate market stress should it occur. These banks must now either reform their policies or face regulatory action from the nascent ECB. Many on the market remained optimistic that the ECB could become a reliable regulatory force, and EU markets have not seen a significant drop after the results of this test. ■
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• November 3, 2014 • Volume XVI, Issue IX
The Unaffordability of the Affordable Care Act
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by Christine Server ’16, Managing Editor
nsurance is too expensive.” As a volunteer at Shepherd’s Clinic, a nonprofit that provides free health care for the uninsured, this is a refrain I’ve heard time and again. Our patients are foregoing insurance in the face of formidable financial barriers, and people who do sign up are blindsided by the reality of paying for their care. One man was proud to find the money to pay his monthly premiums, but when he realized that he would have to pay $20 for his insulin and another $20 for his hypertension medication on top of the co-pay for the doctor’s visit, he became uninsured again so that he could return to Shepherd’s. Another patient took a third job and opened up a high interest credit card to pay for her premiums. She maxed out that credit card and now no longer has insurance because she had to let it lapse. Glenda Skuletich, Shepherd’s administrative director, says that these are not isolated cases; many patients lack the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision about health care. “What they don’t realize is that they’re going to get a bill every time they go to the doctor, that they have to present their insurance card to the pharmacy, or that there’s a $20 copayment to fill a prescription. What was missing was a basic critical understanding of the true cost of being insured.” Earlier this year, Shepherd’s supported health care enrollment with the assistance of on-site navigators from Health Care Access Maryland. As a result, about half of active clinic patients became insured. Many opted to receive medical services from MedStar, a fee-for-service clinic operating in the same building as Shepherd’s. MedStar is now up to a 40 percent no-show rate (compare this to the national average of 5.5 percent in 2000). Shocked by the first bill but unwilling to admit that they can’t pay, patients make appointments they can’t keep. Over 85 percent of people who signed up for insurance on the exchange qualify for subsidies to lower the cost of their premium; nevertheless, a gap exists between qualifying for a health plan and actually being able to absorb additional costs of care.
to expand their Medicaid coverage to include previously ineligible individuals. However, a Supreme Court decision made it optional for states to do so. Thus, the decision depends on the political terrain of each state. So far, 27 states have expanded coverage; of the eight to 11 million people newly insured under the ACA, more than half have benefited from the expansion of Medicaid. The fact that the success of the ACA hinges on the initiative of individual states is worrying. If individuals in Maryland, a state that has expanded coverage, are still struggling to afford their health care, then I imagine that people in the 23 states that have not expanded coverage are having an even harder time. Expanding Medicaid services will continue to play a critical role in the success of the ACA. But the experiences of Shepherd’s Clinic go beyond exposing the limitations of the ACA: they reveal that simply making medical care more accessible will not automatically improve health outcomes. The millions of people who have recently gained access to health care shouldn’t be expected to readily inherit the language, assumptions, and implications of the system. The ACA cannot benefit as many people as it can unless they understand that signing up for a plan is merely a prerequisite to accessing health care. In response to these difficulties, Shepherd’s is rolling out an education program aimed at helping people understand what they’re really getting into when they purchase insurance. “We’re going to help people make an informed decision and tell them to look at the exchange as an option, not a mandate,” Ms. Skuletich said. More than helping patients choose appropriate health plans, education programs like these will go further in reducing health care disparities at a fundamental level. While we search for better ways of addressing issues of accessibility and affordability, places like Shepherd’s Clinic will continue to serve, sadly, as a necessary safety net. ■
Medicaid is one way of bridging this gap. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has provided additional funding for states
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New Sexual Violence Policy, Same Problems
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by Eliza Schultz ’15, Editor-in-Chief
ast April, more than one thousand Johns Hopkins students signed a petition to pressure the University to change aspects of its policy on sexual violence. Aware that, come October, the University would have to revise the policy to comply with new federal law, I launched the petition in the hopes that the suggested changes would be considered for the revision. The new policy, however, includes none of the recommendations, and, to put it mildly, leaves much to be desired. Despite the recommendations put forth in the petition, the University continues to define sexual violence as strictly “physical” acts performed without the consent of one party, and thus excludes non-consensual documentation of a sexual act, voyeurism, and the use of date-rape drugs from its policy. Does this mean that when someone is filmed or recorded in a sexual context against her will, and that film is disseminated without her consent, she cannot seek recourse through the University? And when someone slips his peer a date-rape drug, an act that unambiguously indicates intent to commit sexual assault, is he not punishable under the policy? As the policy currently stands, it appears that no, he is not. The petition also proposed that it be the assailant and not the victim who should switch courses and residences in the wake of an incident of sexual assault. This particular recommendation was ambitious, as Title IX mandates that the victim transfer accommodations should she request it in order to avoid interaction with her assailant. While the former policy complied with Title IX in this respect, the University seems, at first glance, to exclude any statement on accommodation changes from its new policy. The statement can instead be found buried in an entirely separate policy. Someone who has been sexually assaulted should not need to search between two different policies and decipher paragraphs of legalese to know that this option is available. The same goes for the statement on retaliation, which prohibits any form of reprisal against the victim. This, too, can be found after a very thorough perusal of the other policy. The policy that exists to inform us of our rights should inform us of all of our rights, not just some of them.
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How else are we to know that the policy does not provide an exhaustive list of rights, and that we should look elsewhere to find them? It is far more than a minor inconvenience to search between policies and interpret technical legal language just to know that those other rights exist. One possible consequence is that a victim who fears retaliation, but does not know that the University protects against it, might never come forward. Finally, the policy states that sexual misconduct of any kind “will not be tolerated.” Whether this is an official policy of zero tolerance, under which an assailant would be expelled, is unclear, as the policy fails to elaborate any further on sanctions. Precedent, however, tells me that the University has adopted no such policy, and that it offers no examples of sanctions simply because it rarely punishes assailants. The Title IX complaint filed against the University last spring reports that Susan Boswell, former Dean of Student Life, told a victim that, “no student has ever been expelled over sexual assault or had any sort of notation on their transcript.” Take a look at the policy on academic integrity, which lists eleven different penalties for plagiarism. Included are indefinite suspension and expulsion from the University, not to mention a transcript notation. The student who cheats off his neighbor on an exam risks expulsion from Johns Hopkins, but the student who rapes his neighbor is here to stay. Most worrisome, though, is that students were not allowed to contribute to the new policy. One thousand signatures is apparently insufficient to communicate to the University that students, whom this policy is intended to protect, want their voices to be heard. Not even the students who sit on the new Sexual Violence Advisory Committee participated, which leads me to question whether the committee, which the University has touted, but has not yet released any information about its accomplishments, exists for any other purpose than to placate those concerned with campus rape. One thousand signatures, a Title IX complaint, a protest, and a rally. What else will it take? ■
• November 3, 2014 • Volume XVI, Issue IX
The Rise of Anti-Science
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by Helen Zhao ’16, Contributing Writer
octors, prepare yourselves: Americans are drinking the Kool-Aid. In a 2014 study, investigators from the University of Chicago determined that, in most cases, belief in medical conspiracies is no longer indicative of a “psychopathological condition” but rather is increasingly considered “normal.” How can this be? What sorts of pressures have led to this recent rise of the antiscience trope? First, let’s consider the findings. According to the study, twenty percent of people believe that health officials know cell phones cause cancer but are doing nothing about it because of pressure from large corporations, and another 37 percent believe that the FDA is deliberately suppressing information about natural treatments for cancer because of pressure from drug companies. In other words, a sizeable portion of surveyed people believe that medical professionals are colluding with Big Pharma and other corporate goliaths in pursuit of personal financial gain. These fears are not unjustified. Over the past few decades, the American public has witnessed the tobacco industry’s funding of spurious studies to “undermine evidence linking secondhand smoke to cardiovascular disease,” and the marketing by Gilead Sciences, Inc. of Solvadi, a new drug for treating hepatitis C, at an outrageous price of $1000 per pill. Both cases, on top of numerous others, have provided reason to doubt the professedly neutral standings of science and medicine. Moreover, according to a recent HuffPost/You-Gov poll, 34 percent of Americans believe information reported in scientific studies to be often influenced by political ideology. This too, admittedly, is not unfounded: A 2001 poll showed that Americans are just as competent in scientific topics as respondents from other countries “except for when it came to questions about politicized issues,” an indicator of politics’ sway over scientific opinion. On top of it all, distrust in journalistic reporting has likely impeded the diffusion of clinical and scientific evidence debunking conspiracy theories: 57 percent of people surveyed in the aforementioned mentioned HuffPost/YouGov poll claimed they had little trust in science journalists, while 26 percent claimed they had no trust at all. Again, such
suspicions are vindicated by countless examples of media bias. Research and communication of scientific findings may be unduly fraught with ulterior motives, but allowing skeptical concerns to dominate is a detriment to health. This past spring, months-old babies in the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt suffered from severe brain bleeding caused by vitamin K deficiency, or, more plainly, refusal of vitamin K shots, which allegedly cause leukemia and are typically administered to newborns. The bleeding resulted in neuromuscular disabilities and death. And, because of vaccine-autism hysteria, the number of measles and mumps cases in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States in the last five years has risen vigorously. As one pediatrician put it, “something has gone terribly, tragically wrong…when the United Kingdom looks like sub-Saharan Africa in terms of wholly preventable disease outbreaks.” Doctors and scientists must be proactive when it comes to dispelling the misbegotten fears of the public. As vaccine hysteria has unfortunately demonstrated, the risks of medical conspiracism extend far past a decline in vaccine administration and physician authority. The health of children is at the mercy of the unjustified concerns of their well-meaning parents. Should the scientific community shoulder this burden alone in the fight against conspiracists? It seems that scientists and medical professionals would face an uphill battle. After all, how can a doctor convince his or her patient using scientific facts if the patient does not believe in the veracity of those facts, or even in the doctor’s authority? Perhaps the government should intervene to remove fraudulent claims from the public eye, but would such intervention not constitute an infringement upon free speech? Does any organization have the right to instruct one’s beliefs? Moreover, does the doctor have an obligation to ensure that patients only receive confirmed treatments, or should patients have full autonomy over their treatment decisions? These are only a sampling of the questions–legal, political, and ethical–that must be addressed in order for doctors and scientists to launch an effective counterattack against medical conspiracism. But if doctors and scientists don’t speak up, it’s unclear who will. ■
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Interview with Becky Li,
Chinese Student Studying in Hong Kong by Evan Harary ’16, Contributing Writer Becky Li is a third year student studying English and Political Science at Peking University. She is from Sichuan province, and is currently on exchange at City University Hong Kong for one year. Generally, what do you think of the Occupy movement? When I think of Occupy I think of Taiwan, where I was on exchange last year during the Sunflower Student Movement. Students were displeased with certain government policies so they boycotted for several weeks, even holding up government committees. To me, this shows the disadvantages of absolute democracy. Everyone will always be arguing and complaining. Some people will always be unhappy. And without a strong government, the situation can get out of hand. Right now, Hong Kong is not suitable for democracy. There are some very rich and many very poor. Many are poorly educated. They do not know how to properly vote and might be taken advantage of. The general populace does not know what is best for Hong Kong, but with “one person one vote,” this populace would wield significant influence over its direction. Also, Hong Kong is an international city. There are mainlanders and immigrants from all over. Occupy wants to exclude immigrants and make Hong Kong work for locals only. If they get their way, they will ignore the needs of foreigners looking for a better life. Really, Hong Kong is not ready for democracy. One day, when locals can make informed decisions, there will be a time for democracy. But not yet. Do you think this is true for China as well? Yes, but China needs more time. The poor are very poor in China. They do not know what’s best. And without democracy, China will develop faster. I think China is a unique society in this respect. Democracy can obstruct progress. With democracy, you have to acknowledge all opinions and development slows. If you want to build a road through a town, you have to consult all the residents first. And maybe they don’t even want to move, but you have to take their opinions into consideration. So everything slows down. In China, there is real optimism and beautiful growing cities. Abroad, where people can speak freely and vote on whatever whim they may have, I see nothing of the sort. The Chinese government is for the people, more than the people know how to be for themselves.
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Have you found it difficult to express your opinions in Hong Kong? Actually, no. People may disagree, but nobody stops me from speaking. But what I have found is a misunderstanding of Chinese people among all foreigners. People think we are ignorant of the outside world, and that we have no access to information and no knowledge of our rights. This is not true. We are not North Korea. People might say that I am more aware because I have been on exchange, but even the common people in China follow foreign affairs. The government censors certain websites, but there are always ways around. We call getting through to Facebook, Twitter, etc. “scaling the great wall.” Even so, media is censored everywhere, just in different ways. Newspapers in the United States only run what their owners allow, just as CCTV only runs what the government allows. How is Hong Kong perceived in China? I think some Chinese see Hong Kong people as a bit rude, but it depends who you ask. Many people only come to China for shopping. Generally, people think the Taiwanese are friendlier than Hong Kong people. Really, there is not enough communication between Hong Kong and China and that leads to conflicts like this. Even though we are the same country, you have to cross a border to come here. In Hong Kong, mainlanders and locals don’t mix. How do you think this conflict will resolve? Already Occupy is dying down. People are caring less and less about the protests. We say that the students will only protest until their phones die and they can’t take any more pictures. Already our classmates are coming home. They have their grades to worry about. I think all people are selfish on some levels and are willing to compromise. Give them jobs and they will leave the streets, democracy or not. They just want a future for themselves. ■
• November 3, 2014 • Volume XVI, Issue IX
The False Narrative of the Free Market
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by Alexander Grable ’15, Staff Writer
istorically, conservatives and libertarians have claimed that they are in favor of free markets, while the left supports government intervention and income redistribution. This is a false narrative. The government always shapes, and often creates, markets through legislation. The shape of the market determines income distribution. The truth is that the left wants to utilize government in structuring markets to deliver less stratified outcomes, whereas conservatives and libertarians want to use government to create market outcomes that ensure that income flows towards the top. Economists Ha-Joon Chang and Dean Baker argue that there are no free markets, but a series of choices made by governments which structure markets in particular ways. The question then is who controls the government and for whose benefit. Activities which are often cited as being part of the free market, such as patents and trade and labor relations, are in fact government policies put in place by conservatives and libertarians. As Chang identifies, for instance, patents are designed to encourage innovation by giving inventors a government-protected monopoly. This is a policy favored by the right, as patents cause income to flow upward. As an example of this, Baker demonstrates how expensive many pharmaceutical products are in the United States because of patents. Pharmaceutical companies can use their patents to charge prices far above the marginal cost of production. But we could do things differently. Considering that the National Institute of Health (NIH), a federal agency, does much of the pharmaceutical research in this country, we could encourage innovation by a simple increase in the NIH budget. That we do not do so is a choice, and not part of any free market. Free trade is not part of a free market either. Free trade deals are designed to benefit high-income workers and expose low-income workers to rigorous competition in the world labor market. Under free trade deals, for example, governments are not allowed to levy tariffs or give subsidies to protect industry. However, Chang points out that the US government, in free trade negotiations, vigorously defends
professional barriers to entry, especially for highly paid professionals like doctors and lawyers. This is not part of a free market, but a government policy to protect highly paid workers. There is nothing wrong with this, necessarily. Equally, there is nothing wrong with policies that protect lowerpaid workers from excessive competition either. As Chang demonstrates, it was protectionism that made the United States a great economic power, not free trade. Therefore, the trade preferences of American liberals – notably, not democrats – would serve trade measures that would raise the wages of lower-paid American workers. This is just a different government policy choice, not an interference in an imaginary free market. Lastly, the right uses legislation to make union-organizing more difficult. It has also outlawed certain strikes, such as secondary strikes, in which a union team can vote to walk off its place of work in solidarity with another strike. Any union that allows a secondary strike can expect to have its officers arrested and its financial assets seized. This is not part of any free market, but a government policy meant to severely weaken unions and drive down workers’ wages to boost profits. It is no accident that increases in income inequality correspond almost exactly with the weakening of unions. The narrative of a free market right and interventionist left is convenient for the right in its mendacity. It gives the right an unfounded reputation for standing for freedom when all it stands for is a different set of policy choices than its liberal counterpart. As economic historian Karl Polanyi notes, even libertarianism has to use legislation to create and enforce its desired market. Whenever opposition groups have threateneed to implode the right’s state-constructed market, it has never hesitated to use state power to keep its preferred market structure intact. The left has usually backed down. It is imperative that people recognize that debates about markets are about the distribution of income and who controls the productive bounty of society, not freedom and intervention. The left stands for the well-being of all, and it should become bolder in defending its vision of markets. ■
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JHU Politik, founded in 2008, is a weekly publication of political opinion pieces. We proudly seek to provide the Johns Hopkins community with student voices and perspectives about important issues of our time. Rather than hide within a cloistered academic bubble, we know we must critically engage with the world that surrounds us. That, we believe, is at the heart of what it means to be learning. We are lucky to be situated in the city of Baltimore, a city with a rich history and an ever-changing politics. We aim to look at the politics of the Homewood campus, the city of Baltimore, the domestic landscape of the United States, and the international community . While we publish the Politik weekly, we work simultaneously on our special issues which come out once per semester. These magazines confront a single topic from multiple angles. We have run issues covering topics like the political nature of research, the Arab Spring, and our city Baltimore.
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• November 3, 2014 • Volume XVI, Issue IX