Mentioning Healthcare Reform in Interviews

[mechtel]

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First,

Apologies for starting so many threads, but I have searched sdn and haven;t found too many interview specific threads. Aside from the intervoew feedback section, are there any resources I am missing?

Health care reform is sure to be a hot topic this year, and I'm expecting to be asked about it in at least some of my interviews (I have 7 scheduled at the moment).

I believe in the need for a single payer model, but understand that the US has a strong history of protecting individual choice and some concessions would have to be made to accommodate patient choice.

But, loooking at the news these days, people are apparently carrying guns to town hall meetings at the prospect of the current proposals which would be far less reaching than the reform I would want to see. It makes me somewhat affriad to make such a controversial statement at an interview even if I qualify it quite a bit and support my answer with a well reasoned argument.

Simply put, should I mention my honest view on this topic at an interview or is it too radical?

Thank you very much!

 

[DntStopBelievin]

Well, they are going to want your honest view if they ask about it so you better tell it to them. Put it this way, you'll sound much more confident when you are speaking than if you try to make up something they want to hear. Just say you understand that there are other viewpoints but that you believe something else. They are not depending on u to solve the healthcare issue, they just want to know HOW you think and reason,especially because whatever health reform happens we will be living with it. Good luck!

 

[BlueElmo]

Be honest. I think I will sound much more relaxed and believable if I speak what I believe in, not what others want to hear.

 

[Parts Unknown]

Simply put, should I mention my honest view on this topic at an interview or is it too radical?

It's certainly not too radical. According to some surveys physician support for a single payer system is over 40%, and has edged up considerably in the last few years. I would offer a few caveats:

1. Support for single payer will almost certainly vary by specialty, with primary care doctors likely being more sympathetic and other less so.

2. Read and digests everything you can from PNHP.org, the physician organization for supporters of a single payer system.

3. Counterbalance #2 by understanding the problems with single payer, and the cogent arguments against instituting such a system in the US. One typically defuses criticism by being honest and upfront about weaknesses, and incites criticism by trying to hide or gloss over shortcomings.

4. Study up on the Canadian healthcare system, both the good and the bad. They have the world poster child for single payer healthcare.

 

[mechtel]

As I see it, it is an issue of how to frame liberty: at the individual level or at the social level.

More concretely, a single payer system would invariably lead to some choices being made for the social good and not necessarily for the individual. For example, there is strongly diminishing returns at the margin for the use of some technologies, although they do provide some marginal benefit to the individual. But at a social level, we would have to make choices on how to most effectively allocate finite resources.