Abstract
My thesis addresses the research question: Does insurance type have a relationship with the experience that a patient has with their doctor? Specifically, I want to know if a patient’s experience with their medical doctor, holding other possible causal factors constant, vary by whether the patient has private, public, or no medical insurance. To analyze this topic, I am retrieving data from the California Health Interview Survey. This subject remains pertinent in public policy because over the last ten years, healthcare policy has been shifting from a physician-centered to a patient-centered approach. There is a consensus that a patient’s experience with their doctor plays a role in health outcomes, but there is little research on whether one’s type of insurance impacts patient experience. By examining if patients are treated differently depending on their insurance coverage, this thesis relates both to our current public and private system operating under the Affordable Care Act, as well as to the single payer system that policymakers, especially in CA, have been discussing.