Action?

Just the subject alone, healthcare costs in America peaks your interest. Atul Gawande goes on and litters the article with staggering statistics about the costs of healthcare and how it varies across the country from places like McAllen, Tx, where Medicare spends an average of $15,000 per person compared to say El Paso, TX, where it’s only $7,504 per enrollee. Gawande also travels across the country interviewing countless healthcare professionals and that makes this piece engaging, because it’s not the same people telling their side of the story.  None of the facts Gawande presents are boring, they are alarming and make you angry when you hear how some hospitals and doctors are doing business.

Angle:

Gawandes angle is to expose the healthcare issue, mostly the cause of rising costs of healthcare. He does this by examining the way various hospitals, doctors, and clinics do business across the nation. He develops this by saying, hey here’s this town in TX where Medicare pays out about $3,000 more per person than the average person makes and then asks why. He then compares it to places like the Mayo clinic who has some of the lowest costs and Medicare payouts in the country. Gawande then comes to the conclusion that costs are higher in McAllen because of the overuse of medicine for profit.

Anecdotes:

This piece is filled with anecdotes and hypothetical situations that help the reader to relate and better understand the point he is trying to make. One example was from a doctor Gawande was interviewing who had a son who fell down some stairs. The hospital he went to said he was fine and wanted to send him home after a few hours, where at the hospital that the boys father worked at protocol was more tests and a longer stay in the hospital.

Audience:

Everyone in this country needs healthcare, and with the rising costs it has become impossible for many to keep it. This article focus’ on all Americans, especially because we are so close to having Universal Healthcare. It poses the question whether or not it will be feasible due to the unbalance of healthcare costs cross the country.

Form:

This seems to be a service piece. I say this because this is an issue that effects all Americans. This teaches me that research and more research is key to writing a service piece. You also cannot just have one side of the story, you have to present both.

What can I steal from this?

In short, everything! Gawande did an awesome job of presenting the issue, healthcare costs and showed us how it effects us, and the possible cause for the high prices.  He also presents a solution at the end that I think is key in doing a service piece.