Student’s Name

Professor

Course

Date

In the Ted Talk Show (What Americans Agree On When it Comes to Health), the narrator explains some of the issues that have divided the country. She also explains the issues that bring together all the American people. According to Onie (What Americans Agree On When it Comes to Health, 0:55-0:59), the greatest problem that Americans face as a country is because people do not ask the right questions on matters that touch on their health. Onie acknowledges that in America, the government is spending a lot of money to improve the country’s health care system. Still, there is no much improvement that one can be able to see and appreciate. To illustrate how broken the health care system in the country is, Onie narrates that she spent time a few years ago in Boston and asked the medical practitioners what the health care system needed to ensure it suffered the people’s needs. She further argues that all the answers she got from the medical practitioners were similar, and most of them admitted that there was nothing they could do to help the patients (Onie, What Americans Agree on when it comes to health).

Therefore, in her narration, it is clear that Americans can agree on most of the things that matter to them in the health care sector, but they just need to start asking the right questions. According to Onie, 20% of healthcare outcomes are based on the medical care administered in hospitals and other medical facilities, but 70 % of healthcare outcomes depend on the health behaviors and social determinants of health. Therefore, medical practitioners and the citizens in the country must learn to ask the right questions to improve the health care outcome in the country.

There are different social factors that determinant a healthy society, and Onie in her narratives, mentions that it is not important that a lot of money is committed to improving the country’s health care system without addressing the fundamental issue of social determinants of health. In one of the examples given to highlight the social determinants of Health, Onie mentions an incident where a young boy who was seeking medication was not sick as many medical practitioners had thought. Still, he had been kicked out of the house he was living in, and he had gone without food for weeks (What Americans Agree On When it Comes to Health, 03:59-04:10). In her own opinion, Onie intimates that the government is spending a lot of money on drugs instead of ensuring the people get access to healthy food to ensure the majority of unnecessary illnesses are eliminated. Ensuring access to healthy food in society is one of the social determinants of health in the community. When people consume healthy food, they are likely to improve their general well-being, which means there will be fewer people going to medical facilities.

Another issue that Onie is talking about in her narrative is ensuring that people have access to affordable housing. When people do not have access to affordable housing, most of them may end living in undesirable places, which can compromise their health. Therefore, the government must commit money to build affordable houses for the citizens to ensure they live in a good environment that supports their healthy lifestyles. Further, Onie mentions that a survey conducted, and most America, irrespective of their ethnic or racial communities, share the same resolve of improving the healthy behaviors and social determinants of health.

Work Cited