Forming an Opportunity Belief

Opportunity: healthcare

1. Unacceptable health care for the majority of Americans; acceptable health care is defined as affordable for all income levels while providing access to a full range of treatment and prevention options.
2. This is a need felt by all but the wealthiest members of society, who can afford the most exorbitant of interest rates.
3. This is a need that has existed since the rise of human civilization and will foreseeably always exist.
4. People have always been aware of this need to one extent or another, but have become more acutely aware in the last decade.
5. At this point it appears that this opportunity exists with absolute certainty.

Prototypical customers & interviews: quite literally everyone in theory, the most disadvantaged in practice (interviews go into minimal detail in order to protect privacy, only highlights are included here).

1. Those with sufficient wealth can afford the best service under the current system and if they are concerned at all it is only out of empathy/sympathy;
1. Does not perceive this as a personal need per se.
1. Is content with the current system though is unopposed to improvement
2. Becomes aware of the need only in times of medical crisis and have had this need for their entire lives
3. Currently addressing their need adequately through the use of private insurers
1. Can afford quick quality care and is content with the system as is, unopposed to improvement.
2. Fears the possibility of inferior care or paying more (taxes, rates, premiums, etc…) for same or inferior level of care.
1. This fear of possibly worsening their own condition, even if it overwhelmingly benefits others, appears to be the primary reason why existing solutions are discarded out of hand and the current system is looked upon favorably.
1. Slight amendments so the system are cautiously supported, wholesale changes are not.
2. Those with special needs, the elderly, or who suffer from “preexisting conditions” and lifelong illnesses, especially if they are poor, are the primary beneficiaries of any positive improvement;
1. Became aware of the need first upon becoming the legal guardian of a disabled family member, again upon reaching retirement with some chronic illnesses.
1. The need has grown greater in time and began decades ago.
2. Currently addressing their need through insurance, but is worried by recent developments.
1. Uncertainty surrounding the future of the ACA and the markets, uncertainty surrounding the future of medicare.
1. Worried over possibility of losing access to necessary care
2. Worried about the cost of care going up
2. Not particularly satisfied with how they are currently taking care of their need.
3. Low income families/individuals who are particularly at risk would also benefit or suffer more from positive and negative changes respectively.
1. My lower income interviewee, much like the one with special needs, is constantly aware of their needs in this area.
1. Their family suffers from a spate of chronic illnesses (the extent to which these many diseases are real or imagined being besides the point).
1. Pills are (perceived as) a daily necessity in the household.
2. The family regularly makes use of the government's provisions for disadvantaged special needs children and elderly, attempting to convince government officials that they actually have a chronic disorder that meets the government arbitrary requirements.
2. Concerns over the ACA and medicaid also figure prominently here.
3. Generally not happy with the current level and quality of care being provided.
4. Reflection:
1. I found that not everyone perceives the problem in the same way.
1. The wealthier family friend that I interviewed was not at all worried about the care they were currently receiving, they were instead worried about the “solutions” being provided to solve the problems those less fortunate faced.
2. The shear ineffectiveness of the current system for meeting the needs of the majority was also surprising. The extent to which getting necessary care becomes a game of convincing regulators you are the least healthy person in the country seems rather counterproductive.
3. The fact that many of the problems seem to stem more from psychological issues and are responded to with pills rather than actual psychiatric treatments is disheartening.
2. Most of the problem seems to be that while everyone can, theoretically, access care the quality of care drops geometrically while prices only drop arithmetically.
1. There is very little preventative care except at the higher income brackets
1. Preventative care is less expensive in the long term but prohibitively expensive for many individuals in the short term
2. Many issues that should be treated through therapy of one kind or another are treated with pills.
1. There is a failure to identify psychological issues and treat them properly.

Summary:

1. The opportunity I originally envisioned still very much exists, though there are more roadblocks in the way than immediately obvious. There are legitimate concerns from some sectors that any change will be worse for them. It just so happens that these sectors are the most independently powerful. There are also a host of legal hurdles in the way of any “solution”.
2. The new opportunity is probably more accurate than at the start. While the same essential opportunity still exists I now know it will be much more difficult to effectively leverage.
3. There is an extent to which entrepreneurs must be willing to adapt to customer feedback. Sometimes a feature will not be wanted by customers, sometimes there is something that one the entrepreneur believes to be of vital importance that does not matter to the consumers. Simultaneously, the customer is not always right and does not necessarily know what they want. Who, after all, would take the advice of people willing to buy car insurance from a lizard? The AoE series attempted to give consumers what they ‘wanted’ by simplifying mechanics, the studio behind it no longer exists. Blizzard entertainment instead released a complex rts that has now cornered the market. A balance needs to be struck between giving people what they think they want and what they actually want.