Focus groups will be held throughout the District. They will address experiences and attitudes among small business owners, individual residents, workers, non-workers, recent immigrants, the insured and uninsured.  The focus groups will help us to understand:

• The difficulties employers face in offering coverage;
• Why they decided to offer coverage (or not);
• What would motivate them to offer coverage; and
• How they feel about different expansion strategies.

Individual preferences and behavior are also important. Individuals and their family members must choose to buy coverage from their employers, once it has been offered to them, and those individuals eligible for public programs must continuously qualify and re-qualify for coverage. The focus groups will address such issues as:

• Worker perceptions about employer-sponsored insurance;
• Reasons people choose not to buy insurance, including cost, language and other cultural barriers;
• Young adult perceptions about need for and affordability of coverage;
• Time gaps in insurance and what influences them;
• Sources of medical care and the difficulty in accessing them;
• Attitudes about adequacy of benefits and their affordability;
• Willingness to “pay” for coverage expansion (through taxes or other means);
• Desirability of public vs. private insurance, and satisfaction levels; and
• Options for coverage expansion.