DIAGNOSTIC ESSAY, SPRING 2002

Name: _________________________  			Soc. Sec. #:  __________________  

	The following passages have been excerpted from Katherine van Wormer’s 1994 Social Work article.  Consider how van Wormer evaluates U.S. society through her comparison of the United States and Norway.  In an essay intended for publication in a Norwegian news magazine, take a position on van Wormer’s central idea, and make a persuasive argument for your position.   Be sure to include material from the text and from your personal experience to support your idea.  You have 50 minutes to read the passage and then plan and write your essay.  

A Society Without Poverty 

	Yes, there is another way.  
	I went to Norway to teach American methods of alcohol treatment and to learn of life in a welfare state.  My stay of almost two years informed me in the way that firsthand experience informs--rudely, indelibly.  My family and I have experienced the Norwegian community--the schools, social services, the health-care system.  And I've come to see how each dimension is connected to every other dimension of the cultural whole.  In the high quality of life in Norway is the key to the larger pattern. . . .

	Whereas Americans think individually, Norwegians tend to think collectively.  Whereas Americans value competition, Norwegian value cooperation.  The thesis of this article is that poverty persists in the United States because our values say it will persist.  It does not persist in Norway because the society chooses not to tolerate it.  This article examines the general economic conditions in Norway and views them against the Norwegian cultural context--values of egalitarianism and the collective will, trust and the social system, and above all a tradition of kindness to the weaker members of society. . . .

	[The article discusses various aspects of Norwegian economy: poverty, homelessness and housing, Norwegian culture, including health care.]

	A recent feature article in the leading Oslo paper carried the headline “Norway teaches USA on health services for children.”  The medical professor interviewed in the article described an international conference attended in Washington, D.C. according to Professor Lie, “America totally lacks the official health care for children. . . .  In infant mortality and death of children to violence and accidents, the U.S.A. is far ahead of Europe and Canada.  Twenty-five percent of American children live in poverty.”
	The Public Health Service and the hospitals are the responsibility of the government.  Hospital stay is free, and medicine and primary health care cost minor sums.  Mothers or fathers of newborn infants receive extended paid leaves of absence.  
	Present health policies give Norwegians one of the longest life expectancy rates in the world.  Access to excellent health care is not available only to a certain class of citizens but to all members of society.  In contrast to the United States, which has the best technology in health care in the world but lags behind other developed countries in coverage, care in Norway is readily available to all. . . .  

	Norway is an example of the possible.  The solution is simple and described by Selbyg as follows: “Norway is a welfare state, a country where extensive systems of social care and social insurance make most residents who find themselves in a difficult economic situation legally entitled to aid from the government.”  Instead of the work ethic, a helping ethic prevails.  This ethic is not an individualistic, Band-Aid approach but rather a universal, preventive one, a policy consistent with a value system based on care and absolute security.  Norway has found another way and, in my opinion, a far better way.