Python Programming Assignment

Single Payment Prediction Challenge

The government of South Amricandzia will impose a "single payer, single payment" system in order to cover the cost of health care for its citizens.

Under this system, all citizens will be taxed a flat rate based on the expected average cost of healthcare. Each citizen will be taxed this average one time per year. The tax is supposed to cover 100% of the cost and without turning a profit for the government. The tax is the same for every citizen. The tax is recalculated every two years.

As analysts for the government, your job is to predict the flat rate all citizens should be taxed in 2018. Given costs associated with healthcare for a roughly 4 million person population for 2012, 2014, and 2016, you must predict the cost of care in 2018 (i.e. the average cost each person will have to pay).

Read in and process the data from the following files in order to make your prediction for the average cost of care in 2018:

- https://s3.amazonaws.com/mikeghen/costs_2012.txt (Links to an external site.)

- https://s3.amazonaws.com/mikeghen/costs_2014.txt (Links to an external site.)

- https://s3.amazonaws.com/mikeghen/costs_2016.txt (Links to an external site.)

Submit the python code you used to come up with a solution for this assignment. This is an open-ended and will be reviewed for completion.