Choose a minimum of one and a maximum of three health disparities as your focus. Explain why/how expanding Medicaid in Alabama would improve the health disparity you chose.

Opinion Piece (Op-Ed) Assignment

This writing assignment corresponds to the Michener book, Fragmented Democracy. Cite this source, and the three websites at bottom.

Prompt:
Write an opinion piece (op-ed) with a newspaper as the target. The topic is health disparities and Medicaid Expansion in Alabama. Your op-ed should be between 800 – 1000 words. This Op-Ed piece will be informed by the Michener book (Fragmented) and video lectures about health disparities, but you will likely need to look up additional information depending on which health disparity you wish to focus on.

Required Components of the Opinion Piece (Op-Ed)
• Choose a minimum of one and a maximum of three health disparities as your focus. If you choose more than one, they should be related because of the nature of an op-ed (short and focused). Remember to focus on Alabama.
• Explain why/how expanding Medicaid in Alabama would improve the health disparity you chose.
OR
• Explain why/how expanding Medicaid in Alabama is not the right way to improve the health disparity you chose and offer an alternative.
• Your op-ed must be grounded in accurate information. Be sure you are using resources that are not biased (i.e., avoid partisan think tanks as sources).
• You should submit the op-ed in the format of an op-ed (e.g., not with footnotes or in-text references). This is very important. Think about your audience for an op- ed. Avoid academic jargon. Utilize your knowledge from the book and lectures, but you should not explicitly talk about the results of Dr. Michener’s regression analyses! Be sure to look at the resources below to better understand how to navigate writing an op-ed.
• You should include your list of your sources in proper reference format (any style is fine – MLA, APA, etc.) at the end of the document you submit. But remember, you are not citing within the oped.
• Remember that even though this is called an opinion or op-ed piece, you must ground your opinion in facts.

Resources to Help You
• https://www.linfield.edu/linfield-news/working-with-the-media/how-to-write-and- place-an-opinion-column/
• https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/hks-communications- program/files/new_seglin_how_to_write_an_oped_1_25_17_7.pdf
• https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/04/writing-submitting-opinion-piece/