Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

 Assignment 7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

·         Opportunity

o   Healthcare in the united states for a tremendous amount of people is becoming less and less affordable.

§  The who: Americans in the united states who have healthcare needs

§  The what: they are people in the united states who cannot afford healthcare

§  The why: high administrative costs and drug costs are just two factors of rising healthcare costs

o    Testing the who: Americans aren’t the only one that has this need, some other countries have high healthcare costs, but the united states is one of the few developed countries who have this problem. Not all Americans have this need, but Americans in this country who have healthcare needs and can’t afford the associated costs have this need. In fact, over half of Americans delay or don’t get necessary treatments because they can’t afford the healthcare costs. (cnbc.com)

o   Testing the what: Not all health care patients have this problem of not being able to afford their healthcare costs, but over half of Americans can’t afford some of their medical treatments so they end up not doing it or just put it off.

o   Testing the why: why people can’t afford health care costs is because of skyrocketing deductibles and medical bills that not only affect poor people but also middle class families who have private health insurance.

·         Interview # 1:

o   In this interview I found a middle aged male that I work with who has private health insurance through our job. He said that he feels that it is sad that so many Americans cannot afford to pay their medical bills and he can relate because even the health insurance that he has through our company does not cover certain things and also comes with co pays and deductibles that carry a financial burden. He also talked about how he supports Medicare for all, a bill proposed by senator and presidential candidate Bernie sanders.

·         Interview # 2:

o   In this interview I talked to a young woman in her early twenties who I am friends with. She also feels that rising healthcare costs is a problem that a lot of Americans are facing and that is an issue that needs to be addressed. She said she cannot personally relate to the issue because she is still on her parent’s insurance plan and they usually pay any out of pocket expenses and her family is well off. She said this issue needs to be fixed but doesn’t agree with things like Medicare for all because her family likes the health insurance that her father gets through his employer.

·         Interview # 3

o   In this interview I talked to a fellow student who is in his mid-twenties. He said that he agrees that healthcare costs have gotten out of control and that it is sad to see a lot of families suffer as a result. He said that he himself gets health insurance through his work, but that it does not cover much. He said that he recently had a visit to the hospital, and he had to pay a lot of out of pocket expenses because his health insurance did not cover it. Like my first person I interviewed, he said that he would not be opposed to something like Medicare for all.

·         Interview #4

o   In this interview I talked to a middle aged woman who I work with. She agrees that health care costs are high, but she thinks that people just need to get jobs that have good health insurance plans. She says that her health insurance covers most of the medical procedures she has gotten, including a hip replacement she had to get a few years ago. She thinks that something like Medicare for all should not be implemented because she likes her private insurance and if the government ran things it would be inefficient.

·         Interview #5

o   In this interview I talked to my neighbor: a woman in her early 30s with two kids. She agrees healthcare costs in this country are insane and that there needs to be change because it is an issue that negatively effects a lot of families. She mentioned how the healthcare costs associated with the birth of her two kids alone were a financial burden. She also mentioned how she has had a lot of issues with her digestive system that have required a lot of hospital visits, which in turn has costed a lot for her and her family. She thinks that this country should have Medicare for all or at the very least more affordable health care.

·         Given your interviews, what do you know about the opportunity that you didn't know before?

o   The people that I interviewed gave me some insight into this situation and all the unique perspectives people can have on one issue. In particular it surprised me how tow people (interviewee number 4 and 5) had a lot of similar issues in their lives but at the same time they had different opinions on the health care debate. They both had major surgeries in recent years but only one of them thought that we should fundamentally change our healthcare system. I think I got some unique perspectives from these interviews because I got people that had opposing opinions on the same issue. From these interviews, what I know now that I didn’t know before is that it seemed that younger people were more inclined to be for changing the healthcare system as opposed to older people.