| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 亞太研究英語碩士學位學程(IMAS) === 103 === The aim of this project was to formally examine how the experience of living abroad in the United States affects the perceptions of Taiwanese people towards Taiwan's National Health Insurance. The study interviewed seven Taiwanese laypeople who have lived solely in Taiwan as well as ten Taiwanese laypeople who have lived both in Taiwan and in the United States. Five Taiwanese healthcare policy experts were also interviewed. The interviews were guided interviews that assessed the subjects' perspective with questions focusing on the quality and value of care, past experiences in Taiwan and the United States, expectations about healthcare, policy knowledge, and expert training. The study is intended to be a first step in the examination of influences on the perception of laypeople concerning healthcare, with the eventual goal of the design and implementation of methods to influence public policy toward healthcare support and funding in Taiwan. The study used a combination of grounded theory and guided research to determine the following: 1) People who have lived the US do show a small change in their perceptions of the Taiwan system with regards to frequency of use and their perceptions of positive and negative attributes of the system. The also had different views on how to alleviate those negative attributes. 2) Living abroad does appear to bring the perception of laypeople closer to the perception of the experts when it comes to the problems of the Taiwan system, how to fix them, and the ideals that undergird the system. 3) Laypeople, both those who have and have not been to the US, know less about the system as a whole than the policy experts. This topic has wide ranging implications for policy design and public education. Policymakers would be well advised to use far more international comparisons when talking about policy to replicate the effect of direct experience abroad. There also needs to be more education about the current structure of the NHI as most of its beneficiaries are unclear about the cost of the program and who pays it.
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