Some health care policy goals of society are delivery and financing of health care services. Health policy usually explains the movements engaged by governments; local, state, and national, to improve the society's health and welfare. It is a health care policy that stays more focused on discussing the health care needs of the majority of the population. The United States of America (USA) is the leading spender on health care than any other country (policy almanac,
2010). For years, health care expenditures grew at a far more swift rate than the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), by using the majority of the country‘s capitals. The rising cost of health care and the determination to control the cost of escalation in spending is a major quarrel. The increase in cost and spending of health care affects many policies, consumers, physicians, government, children, and senior citizens. The crucial focus is based on the first three phases of how the procedure works with Medicare/SCHIP.
There are six stages of the policy making process, however, this paper will touch on three. There are three interrelated phases of health care policy making: the legislative stage, formulation stage, and the implementation stage. These three important organized stages take place in order to change a topic such as Medicaid, into a policy. The formulation stage is a planning cycle by stating an assumption. It is the main and most challenging stage in forming proper decision methods. The requirement of this stage is to set objectives and goals, set priorities, define and appraise options, draft the policy, define issues, and revise (Learn NC,
2003). The legislative stage is known as the decision making stage where deliberations, debates, and d...
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...support programs, and to support social goals (pinkmoney.com, n.d.). Any decision making is difficult. Decision-making is a nonstop process with several people helping or adding too it. The government is always at various stages of policy-making in a unlimited quest to provide solutions to innumerable community troubles. Decision makers usually rely, primarily, on the politics side of the process as a way to find a solution that is adequate to the diverse group of people with contradictory demands, values, and proposals. Any policy that involves significant costs, major change or controversy will be fairly more time consuming and complicated to accomplish and will call for the use of more political skills and sway than will some policies involving less multifaceted changes. The writer has went over how the policy making process starts with a topic.
This book also elaborates on the study of rulemaking by giving examples through cases, studies, loads of government documentation and interviews with policy makers. Following the information and chapters is really easy. The book is illustrated with clear tables, charts, and figures. Each chapter is clearly defined and tables/figures are clearly marked after the table of contents.
Wekesser, Carol. Health Care in America: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA. Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1994.
For decades, one of the many externalities that the government is trying to solve is the rising costs of healthcare. "Rising healthcare costs have hurt American competitiveness, forced too many families into bankruptcy to get their families the care they need, and driven up our nation's long-term deficit" ("Deficit-Reducing Healthcare Reform," 2014). The United States national government plays a major role in organizing, overseeing, financing, and more so than ever delivering health care (Jaffe, 2009). Though the government does not provide healthcare directly, it serves as a financing agent for publicly funded healthcare programs through the taxation of citizens. The total share of the national publicly funded health spending by various governments amounts to 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, GDP (Jaffe, 2009). By 2019, government spending on Medicare and Medicaid is expected to rise to 6 percent and 12 percent by 2050 (Jaffe, 2009). The percentages, documented from the Health Policy Brief (2009) by Jaffe, are from Medicare and Medicaid alone. The rapid rates are not due to increase of enrollment but growth in per capita costs for providing healthcare, especially via Medicare.
Healthcare in the U.S. has recently been affected by implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. The intent is to create a healthca...
Healthcare has been a topic of discussion with the majority of the country. Issues with insurance coverage, rising costs, limited options to gain coverage, and the quality of healthcare have become concerns for law makers, healthcare providers and the general public. Some of those concerns were alleviated with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, but new concerns have developed with problems that have occurred in the implementation of the new law. The main concerns of the country are if the Affordable Care Act will be able to overcome the issues that plagued the old healthcare system, the cost of the program, and how will the new law affect the quality of the health delivery system.
Longest Jr., B.B (2009) Health Policy making in the United States (5th Edition). Chicago, IL: HAP/AUPHA.
Niles, N. J. (2011). Basics of the U.S. health care system. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Health care is one of the most debated issues in the United States today and it 's necessary to understand the basics of this problem. Approximately 50 million people living in the United
The main purpose of health care policies, like geographic maps, is to provide routes and directions to best achieve specific goals. Their design involves many variables and go through many steps that often begins with a problem that needs to be solved or addressed. To demonstrate such concept, this paper discusses the steps taken to adopt a new health policy in North Carolina; the main goal of the new policy is to implement Evidence-Based Practice (EVP) in mental health care and to redirect the service to its target population. The paper highlights the role of management, implementers, stakeholders, and professionals in the initiation and implementation steps of health policies.
Policy in my perspective illustrates as a decision making, planning and or action taken to achieve a certain specific goal within our society. According to Longest B. (2010), his definition stated in his text book states that a policy is defined as ” authoritative decisions made in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of government that are intended to direct or influence the actions, behaviors, or decisions of others.” In developing a policy, certain steps need to be taken in act to implement the policy. The crucial steps in implementing a policy are: recognizing the problem, agenda setting, formulating the policy, and finally implementing the policy (N.A., 2015).
Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.
The United States is the largest developed nation in the world that does not guarantee health coverage for its citizens. Among the nations offering guaranteed healthcare coverage or single-payer systems are: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Japan, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France and Canada. Among these countries the average spending for healthcare is $4,500 per person while the United States on average spends $7,000 per person. In a 2007 study, when compared with 27 high-income democra...
Formulation is the second stage after identifying the problem and setting the agenda. This stage involves the proposal of solutions to the issue. The policy makers propose several courses of actions and solutions to addressing the issue. Then come up with one effective solution that will solve most of the issues (Boundless, 2013).
“Americans are not healthier than some of the other developed nations, regardless of these extensive costs” (WHO, 2007). “Almost 40 million Americans are uninsured and about 18% of Americans under the age of 65 receive half of the recommended healthcare services” (Goldman, and McGlynn, 2005). “Though, quality of care was
As of 2013 data, the US per capita government expenditure was $4307 while total per capita expenditure on health spending was $9146, which is 17.1 percent of the GDP (2013) for the total expenditure on health. The annual rate of growth in per capita government spending on healthcare has been roughly 5.1 percent over the past thirty years (WHO, 2015). This rate of spending on health care growing faster than the economy for many years creates challenges ...