Introduction
All humans have personal problems, and their problems may expand quantitatively and sometimes qualitatively. Subsequently, they get recognition in society and evolve from personal troubles to social issues. As societies differ, so do the issues that plague them. However, humans are presented with problems bringing disturbance to the whole country and even the world. Access to medical care is of the social problem, which remains essential up-to-date, so it should be further assessed to be properly eliminated. For the issue in question, survey research and secondary analysis may be proven beneficial.
Affordable Health Care
Despite all development of medical care and respectful services, its accessibility and affordability remain a burning question. The infamous Affordable Care Act emphasizes the importance of “improving the health of populations and simultaneously reducing the overall cost of medical care” (Buehler, 2018, 36). The resolution implied the necessity of assessing accessibility to medical care and detecting social groups least exposed to the quality care to equalize the population’s overall health. Yet, despite a comprehensive strategic approach to establish affordable health care, accessibility to medical services and their affordability remain a major social problem even now, ten years from the act coming into force.
Currently, Americans remain dissatisfied with the medical care they receive. Mahesh and Sandoe (2020) have conducted a polling experiment to access citizen views on Medicare For All and Medicaid Buy‐In, two major healthcare insurance providers. Their survey supports the claim that citizens deem the federal government responsible for health care accessibility. The results have shown that the majority of the subjects wish the government would cover the total cost of medical care (Mahesh & Sandoe, 2020). This fact supports current dissatisfaction with health care management. It implies that citizens find it difficult to cover possible expenses our-of-pocket and support the current plan on expanding health insurance. Still, the whole package and its results are yet to be seen; subsequently, public opinion on health care accessibility should be further analyzed.
Effective Methods of Researching Health Care Accessibility
Health care accessibility may be assessed through various methods. Survey research is one of the most comprehensive means to measure public opinion on current medical care affordability and accessibility. Through a questionnaire, subjects can express their opinion on various aspects, which determines medical care—comprehensiveness results in a diversity of expressed opinions, which assists in analyzing the social problem from different perspectives. Survey researches also help bring minorities’ view to the foreground so that the polling experiments may suggest innovative solutions to the existing problem. Additionally, a case study of medical care accessibility allows to single out social groups least exposed to medical care and social groups most affected by the cost of health care. Consequently, the implementation of survey researches results in achieving practical and comprehensive results.
Another effective means of analyzing medical care affordability is secondary analysis. The government continuously accesses public opinion on integrating policies and keeps track of several admissions, clinical characteristics, and medical billing systems. Secondary research is based on reliable sources with large amounts of data. In this regard, this method allows investigating the social problem on a large scale and detecting state-wide tendencies in medical care accessibility. This method bears results, but in some cases, may be less favorable than classical surveys, as secondary data tend to get outdated and immune to the most recent shifts in social agenda.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, health care accessibility and affordability remain major social problems, which should be further investigated. Recent researches prove that citizens regard the access to medical care as a crucial social issue. Since access to medical care is a multi-dimensional problem, comprehensive social methods of investigation prove to be the most effective. In this regard, survey research and secondary analysis may produce the best results, as they take several variables into account and allow accessing situations at an enormous scope. Yet, no study would ever consider all aspects, so these methods may be supported by field research to increase the survey’s effectiveness.
References
Buehler, J., Snyder, R., Freeman, S., Carson, S., & Ortega, A. (2018). It’s not just insurance: The Affordable Care Act and population health. Public Health Reports (33(1), 34-38. DOI: 10.1177/0033354917743499
Mahesh K., Sandoe E. (2020). A polling experiment on public opinion on the future expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. Health Serv Res., 55(4), 578-586. DOI: 10.1111/1475-6773.13295