HEALTH CARE POLICY
Instructions:-Choose a current policy issue. Discuss this issue in terms of the stages of the policy-making process
Solution.
Health Care Policy
The process of making policy in the United States of America encompasses an interaction of some groups which includes the President, advisors, state and federal courts, organizational bureaucrats, the media, political groups and other stakeholders. Notably, public policies formulated have specific objectives, and they are based on laws and regulations set by the people and implemented by the US administration. The policy-making process integrates five stages. First a there must be an identification of a problem, then setting an agenda, followed by policy formulation and adoption, then an implementation of the policy (Gerston, 2014).
In the US, the citizens came to a realization that the cost of Medicare was increasing day by day, leaving the public in a distraught. Consequently, the public needed a sense of entitlement to Medicare when they attain older age, preferably sixty-five years, as they had worked for it. Therefore, the government had a responsibility to provide assurance and security that such a plan would be accessible when necessary. Healthcare was posing a significant threat to the national budget as well as pushing families into a financial crisis since it had was consuming sixteen percent of their families’ household expenditures (Irons, 2013). Much of the increases in the cost of healthcare were attributed to the obstinate incentives that rewarded providers regarding volume, rather than the quality of care.
The US administration and other stakeholders boarded on coming up with an agenda and delineating the problems that the government had to discourse. Thereby, projections indicated that by the year 2030, the population of those aged above 35 years would have doubled up. Alternatively, it was also projected that those aged above 65 would double more, accumulating the number to around 178 million older population in the nation. Therefore, with such projections, it would require more geriatric healthcare professionals. Also, with a larger percentage of care providers retiring, there is a complimentary increase in the number of age-related patients. Additionally, the country faces a problem of nurse shortage, and a good number of US citizens are grouped as medically undeserving because they are not insured (Irons, 2013).
The glitches mentioned above initiated the government and other stakeholders to come up with a policy. Proposals were discussed to strengthen employer coverage, aiding the patient’s freedom to choose their favorite clinicians and making sure that the insurance companies are liable. The program is designed for having an accessible and affordable healthcare for all citizens in the country that is anchored by the existing healthcare system. The policy bars insurance companies and other firms from dictating where the patients should receive their medication and treatment. The adoption of this program followed a guide released by President Obama’s government. The Affordable Care Act was passed by the Congress on 23rd March 2010 and was executed as an ultimate judgment to support healthcare law by the Supreme Court on 28th June 2012. It allowed an allowance of the revitalization of policies dealing with health care, predominantly those that do not meet the necessities of the Affordable Care Act. Currently, some states that control their insurance marketplace can allow for renewal of non-compliant policies (Sommers, Buchmueller, Decker, Carey, & Kronick, 2013).
Lastly, the proposed plans are now being implemented by the government to ensure that the health insurance is beneficial to people as well as businesses, and it is biased towards drug and insurance companies. Insurance companies are obliged to cover pre-existing environments. Also, the cost of businesses has been lowered, and it is evident that small businesses are subject to Small Business Health Tax Credit. Subsequently, there has been a diminution in the medicinal services cost especially by bringing down the expense of medications and bringing down the cost of cataclysmic illnesses.
References
Gerston, L. N. (2014). Public Policy-Making: Process and Principles. New York: Routledge.
Irons, M. (2013). Surviving ObamaCare: Money Saving Solutions For Today’s Health Care Crisis. Michigan: M.I. Publishing.
Sommers, B. D., Buchmueller, T., Decker, S. L., Carey, C., & Kronick, R. (2013). The Affordable Care Act has led to significant gains in health insurance and access to care for young adults. Health Affairs, 32(1), 165-174.