NURS 602 Assignment 1.1 Politics, Policy, and Health Care

Order ready-to-submit essays — 100% plagiarism-free guaranteed!

Note: Our papers are 100% human-written. 

Student name

Maryville University

NURS 602 Health Care Policy

Professor Name

Submission Date

Abstract

This paper is aimed at answering the discussion questions of Chapter Two in the third edition of the book, Policy and Politics of Nurses and Other Health Professionals. The initial issue that is going to be reported is the boundaries of the market in the provision of health services.

The second point that will be addressed will be identifying the reasons why the federalist form of government leads to the fragmentation of healthcare delivery. The third issue that is going to be discussed will be examining what makes policy alternatives political. The fourth issue will be on why the supremacy of the physicians has yielded to corporate interests. The final issue to be addressed will be the reason why nurses and other health professionals are slowly gaining an elevated position in the health policy arena.

Politics, Policy, and Health Care

When it comes to healthcare, the government implements policies to assist people in acquiring or maintaining a healthy status. Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg (2019) talked about the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aimed at assisting Americans in having access to healthcare. Due to this policy, nearly thirteen million Americans are now covered by health insurance and, consequently, a greater number of people now access services, and health outcomes have improved (Nickitas, Middaugh, & Feeg, 2019).

Limits of the market in the provision of health services

The healthcare field contains few providers to share among all. In supply, there is low demand, and the supply is high. The market has a boundary in delivering health services. The market is where healthcare is obtained. The fact that the people who are unable to afford the healthcare services will be deprived of the services is one of the limitations the market has to offer the services in providing health services. As Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg (2019) explained, the market does not ensure distributive fairness since it is based on the impracticable assumption that the exchange is in the form of an exchange between equals and that such an exchange cannot be established in a society where income is unevenly distributed (Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg, 2019, p. 28). In this respect, the market is inclined towards economic inequality. Due to this, the government intervenes and implements policies and programs for the people who are unable to afford those commodities provided by the market, like healthcare.

Fragmentation of healthcare

Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg (2019) explained that all the different concepts of responsibility of health policy are related to the federalist system of government, yet they also mentioned that the states retained some of the responsibilities in their hands when the nation was established.

(Nickitas, Middaugh, & Feeg, 2019). The federal government is bound by jurisdiction but can impose taxes to increase general welfare. The federal government is significant in controlling how the system is financed via compulsory health insurance and other social insurance. The health care delivery in the United States consists of a disjointed network of both public and private health care delivery, and there is no national or combination of policies governing the health care system. The Affordable Care Act was implemented to make sure that every American can access affordable health insurance, but health coverage is still fragmented. Another reason why healthcare delivery is fragmented due to the federalist system is that there is a perceived belief that the federal government is imposing an approach that is not individualized to social programs.

The system of federalism in government leads to the disintegration of healthcare delivery in various aspects. There are several services growing out of laws, which take care of needs that are similar to the needs that are enacted on federal, state, and local levels, due to this. This makes individuals requiring long-term care go in circles to find out whether they qualify to receive the services.

The fragmentation that is formed by the federalist system also influences the possibility of developing a program of national health insurance. The Affordable Care Act was modified to make employers with 50 or more employees offer health insurance or pay a penalty, the Internal Revenue Service is not enforcing the collection of the penalty. The lost money due to this is further undermining access to services since this income is utilized to fund the Medicaid expansion (Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg, 2019).

Policy Alternatives and Politics

The development of policies frequently represents a decision and action process in many steps that have a reasonable result. High healthcare costs are among the many problems in healthcare. limited access, uninsured people. This has led to the formulation of policies in an attempt to correct all these problems, yet there is disagreement among those formulating these policies on how they should be carried out. All people who make these policies, as Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg (2019) suggest, have their vision of how the problem should be fixed, but not all agree, and make the process of fixing it political. Stakeholders, who possess the most influence on the decisions to be made, are usually used to determine which decision is the best one (Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg, 2019, p. 32). The government will then intervene as an arbiter of the interests and shape and enact the policies to achieve broader objectives.

The dominance of physicians has given way to corporate interests.

Physician domination has been replaced by corporate interests. The programs to be implemented to assist the individuals who cannot afford insurance but are not part of the federal government or the military were Medicare and Medicaid. Despite the fact that such programs opened more access to healthcare, it also shifted the balance of power towards the providers and towards those institutions, the interests of which were more oriented to financing healthcare and, as a result, healthcare costs started to increase at an accelerated pace due to the expanded access to medical care and the manner in which such payments were determined (Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg, 2019). In case a physician has any expectation of earning any money, he or she must work within the institutions due to the improved payments that he or she earns as compared to private practice. This is due to the fact that institutions are forced to enter into contracts with insurance companies to reimburse them at levels that the providers in the private practice cannot make a profit.

Health policy arena

The final issue to be discussed is the reason why nurses and other health professionals are starting to gain some height in the health policy sphere. This is so because nurses and other healthcare providers represent their patients. They are the ones who are most in contact with the patients and know what they require and what they should offer them so that they can make the most out of it. Losing a patient to insurance may lead to the deterioration of their health since they will not be in a position to afford the care they require in order to remain healthy. Nurses and other healthcare workers are learning that they possess more power and, due to this, are leading policy-related debates and demanding a more vocal voice in the policy-making process in order to address the needs of their patients with whom they work closely (Nickitas, Middaugh, and Feeg, 2019, p. 38).

Finally, politics is also significant to the healthcare sector. There must be policies to be put in place and occasionally reviewed to assist in addressing the needs of people who require healthcare. To better care for their patients, nurses and other healthcare caregivers should be the mouthpiece of their patients and assist in formulating these policies to make them favorable to the individuals they are serving.