"What’s Important to You?"
Responses to the On-line Questionnaire
- Questionnaire (PDF only)
- Responses (Excel file - 6 MB)
- Responses (tab-delimited text - 4.7 MB)
- Questions (tab-delimited text)
Instructions for Accessing These Data
Between October 4, 2005 and August 31, 2006, the Working Group received 4,600 on-line responses to its questionnaire "What’s Important to You?" The questionnaire contained questions that flowed directly from the Congressional guidance (in the law) to the Working Group, as well as a number of demographic questions so we could better understand who our respondents were.
The data submitted throughout this 10-month period are included in the Microsoft Excel Worksheet available here. To analyze these data, it is necessary to understand the way in which the questions were asked, when they were asked, and how responses were recorded on the spreadsheet being made available to the public.
The spreadsheet includes responses to several iterations of open-ended questions:
- From October 4, 2006 to October 24, 2006, the questionnaire contained eight open-ended questions, listed below. They were followed by two demographic questions – gender and age.
- What concerns you most about health care in America today?
- We want to know what health care benefits and services Americans want. What health care benefits and services are most important to you?
- Our current way of paying for health care includes payments by individuals, employers, and government. Are there any changes you think should be made to this system?
- Because health care is very personal, we all have opinions about how we and our families get the care we need and want. How do you want your health care delivered and what’s most important to you about the kind of care you get?
- What have you seen in American health care that works well?
- What trade-offs do you think the American public is willing to make in either benefits or financing to ensure access to affordable, high quality health care?
- What is your single most important recommendation to make to improve health care for all Americans?
- Is there anything else you would like to share with us about health care in America?
- In order to reduce redundancy and increase information about who was writing to us, on October 25, 2006, questions 2, 4, 5, and 8 were dropped from the questionnaire and demographic questions on race, education, and health insurance status were added.
The following table identifies each of the fields in our database and the period each question was posted on the website. Because of the changes to the questions discussed above, it is important to identify which columns in the spreadsheet apply to the data for a given respondent, based on date. Due to space limitations, some fields are truncated.
| Data Field | Dates of Data Collection |
| Respondent ID (Automated Unique Identifier) | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1646_What concerns you most about health care | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1712_Our current way of paying for health care | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1714_What trade-offs do you think the America | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1648_What is your single most important recommendation | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1743_<b>We have a few final questions just to | 10/6/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 2153_ How old are you? | 2/3/2006 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1749_Are you Hispanic or Latino? | 10/25/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1750_Which of these groups best represents you | 10/25/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1751_What is the highest grade or year of school | 10/25/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1752_Do you have any kind of health care coverage | 10/25/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| 1711Priv_We want to know what health care benefit | 10/4/2005 to 10/24/2005 |
| 1713Priv_Because health care is very personal, we | 10/4/2005 to 10/24/2005 |
| 1647Priv_What have you seen in American health ca | 10/4/2005 to 10/24/2005 |
| 1715Priv_Is there anything else you would like to | 10/4/2005 to 10/24/2005 |
| 1720Priv_We have a few final questions just to he | 10/4/2005 to 10/6/2005 became 1743 |
| 1806Priv_Are you Hispanic or Latino? |
Version never used |
| 1806CommPriv_Are you Hispanic or Latino? | Version never used |
| 1719Priv_How old are you? | 10/4/2006 to 2/2/2006 became 2153 |
| 2176Priv_16. Which of these groups best represen | Version never used |
| 2176CommPriv_16. Which of these groups best represen | Version never used |
| 1718Arch_We have two final questions just to help | 10/4/2005 only became 1720 |
| 1748ArchPriv_Are you Hispanic or Latino? | Version never used |
| State | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
| ResponseDate ( Automated Date) | 10/4/2005 to 8/31/2006 |
This questionnaire was the first the Working Group posted on its website. The purpose of using open-ended questions at the outset was to the give the public an opportunity to “speak freely” to the Working Group about the health care issues that were most important to them.
In addition to the on-line responses to this questionnaire, we also received 1,600 hard-copy responses from individuals and organizations that printed out the questionnaire and mailed the paper forms to us.
The first set of questions was followed by a health care poll that was more highly structured and intended to obtain the public’s input on specific policy issues and options. A third on-line poll solicited comments on the Interim Recommendations of the Working Group. Data from these additional sets of questions are posted separately.
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