This Health Policy & Politics Essay paper explores a nurses role in health care, policies implemented, and the legislative process in which they operate. Nurses are not only advocates for themselves; they are also an advocate for their patients. Health Policy & Politics Essay. Therefore, it is important for nurses to be active in lobbying for much needed policies that concern their healthcare and wellbeing. It sheds some light on various organizations set into place in which these nurses can come together and have a voice in which to enable the changes desired and needed for individual voices that may not have been heard otherwise. It explores a few specific healthcare policies that have had major influences on healthcare management as well as the nurses themselves. Health Policy & Politics Essay. In addition, it outlines some of the legislative processes, budgetary and bill policies, as well as some of the programs not otherwise known to have been started through nurses rallying together to allow citizens better healthcare regardless of race, socio-economic status, or age. Nurses truly are the apex of healthcare policy and legislature. Health Policy & Politics Essay.
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Legislature, by definition, is a powerful and intimidating body of officials that seem to do works above that of your everyday individual out in the workforce living pay check to paycheck. However, when closely examined, legislature starts with that very individual. It is said that it takes an entire village to raise a child; as is the case of health care policies and legislature. Health care is universal to everyone in the fact that everyone needs healthcare and is therefore, affected by its policies. Everyone has the power to make changes that can benefit them as an individual. These individuals bind with other like-minded individuals and form a united voice in which a platform is set for desired changes to be heard. Nurses are at the very apex of this voice as they are on the front-lines with these individuals giving the day to day care and have first-hand knowledge to help in health care policies and legislature…Health Policy & Politics Essay.
A healthcare policy is a set of rules and regulations that are put into effect to assist in the operation and the shape of health delivery. A healthcare policy covers a range of issue including public health, chronic illness and disability, long-term care, the financing of health care, preventive health care and mental health. There are two models of a healthcare which consist of the single payer and the social insurance system. In the single payer model, taxes are paid to the government which then pays healthcare providers such as nurses, doctors, and dentists to provide health services to individuals. In a social insurance system, citizens must purchase health insurance from non-profit insurance companies who will then use this health insurance to pay for services provided by healthcare providers. Healthcare is financed through private insurance companies which individuals can access through their employers and for the many Americans that are uninsured, there are three programs in which they can go through called Medicare, Medicaid, and The State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Health Policy & Politics Essay. Medicare mainly deals with Americans who are over the age of 65 or disabled. Medicaid deals with people who are of low income or maybe classified as being poor. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program deals with people who are uninsured or low income children. There are so many aspects that can make up healthcare policy and there will be many more that will have an impact on healthcare in the future…
The legislative process is a pivotal process that shapes the health care policy within the country. The US healthcare system requires a lot of influencing and lobbying in order to adopt or to implement the necessary health care reform policies. The nurses are the relevant people to push for these reforms through their associations or alliances e.g. The Nursing Organizations Alliance (NOA).
The nurses hold the most influential position in driving for the necessary healthcare reforms; this is because of their numbers, expertise and also their positions. The evidence of these numbers is demonstrated by a statistical report which shows that in every 44 female voters in the US there is one nurse. Secondly, in every 100 voters there is one nurse. Finally, there is evidence that there are 100,000 nurses in every congressional district (source: Leavitt, 2003)…
The Need for Nurses to Engage in Political Involvement There has been a pandemic apathy towards political activism among the nursing fraternity, despite the fact that politics to a greater extent affects the way these medical practitioners carry out their duty of providing care. Nurses have not seen any reason for political involvement citing that no direct relationship exists between nursing and political activism (Boswell, Canon and Miller 5). Health Policy & Politics Essay. They claim that nursing is about application and service, demonstration by involvement and more of ‘walking the walk’ rather than the political ‘talking the talk’ (Rains and Barton-Kriese 219). Political activism to them is a waste of the precious time that could be used to provide healthcare to…Health Policy & Politics Essay
The public policy issue selected is childhood obesity. I selected this issue because childhood obesity has a considerable longstanding impact on the health of the public as well as the cost of health care. This is becoming a more significant issue in the public realm because childhood obesity emanates from the main reason that these children grow up into obese adults who might end up suffering a great deal of health problems. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2015), childhood obesity has more than doubled and increased fourfold in adolescents in the past three decades. Statistics indicate that by 2012, more than 33% of the children and adolescents in the United States were obese or overweight. This implies that there is a need for policy intervention addressing this health hazard. Health Policy & Politics Essay.
Research studies undertaken have indicated that childhood obesity is a relevant public policy issue to the health of the general public. According to Karnik and Kanekar (2012), childhood obesity is a growing issue of concern with regard to the health and welfare of the child. The cause of childhood obesity is the disparity between calorie consumption and calories that are used up. There are several factors that are causal to this public policy issue, which include genetic, environmental and behavioral factors. Health Policy & Politics Essay. The pervasiveness of childhood obesity is increasing in both developed and developing nations. It is ranked as one of the major health problems indicating that incidence of childhood obesity has amplified over the years. The augmented pervasiveness of childhood obesity may have detrimental ill health and transience repercussions in the adult phase of the child. In particular, physical, psychosomatic, and social health complications are caused as a result of childhood obesity (Karnik and Kanekar, 2012)…Health Policy & Politics Essay.
Health Care Reform is a concern for people that have health insurance, for those that can’t afford health insurance and the price of healthcare for all of us. Health Policy & Politics Essay. There are the difference views on Health Care Reform: The healthcare view, the public opinion and The House and the Senate. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid will withhold 2% of base payments that would serve as incentive payments to hospital based on their total performance score derived from separate domains. The current domains include process measure, outcome and patient satisfaction…Health Policy & Politics Essay.