The Process by Which Topics Become Public Policies

Understanding the complex structure of the many health care subsystems in the United States goes a long way to explaining why it is often so hard to get anything done or to create change; a system this complicated does not move quickly or easily—or sometimes, at all. Understanding that the system is made up of multiple separate and unconnected collections of financing and provision of care reveals how difficult it is to carry out any reasonable system-wide planning for the entire system and the entire population (Williams, Torrens, 2007). For these reasons the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the first of its kind in American history, may change the way policy is implemented in the future. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was the first policy to be implemented while breaking almost all of the old legislative rules about communication and public comment and consumption.

In order to first start a policy process, the problem for which a policy is to be created must be identified and the policy holding a solution to the problem. Researchers and stakeholders will investigate the problem to identify if the policy will reach the policy making agenda. Policies must be to improve society’s health and wellbeing. In the United States (U.S.) public health related issues that require a formulation of a new policy and come from local, state, or federal legislations which ruling govern the provision of health care services and regulations. In this

The New York Times printed an article by Robert Pear, which reported that on December 24, 2009, the US senate passed the first bill, which would call for major reform regarding health care in the United States (Pear). The article titled “Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul on Party-Line Vote,” discusses the fact that while this step was a major milestone in the process of providing Americans with affordable heath care, it was not the end of the road. Over the coming months and years there would be a lot of give and take between democrats and republicans to revise the bill to the point where both sides could support it. One of the major points in this reform is that the US government was now going to offer affordable plans including subsidy options which would allow more Americans affordable options which were

The American Health Care system needs to be constantly improved to keep up with the demands of America’s health care system. In order for the American Health Care system to improve policies must be constantly reviewed. Congress still plays a powerful role in public policy making (Morone, Litman, & Robins, 2008). A health care policy is put in place to reach a desired health outcome, which may have a meaningful effect on people. People in position of authority advocates for a new policy for the group they have special interest in helping. The Health care system is formed by the health care policy making process (Abood, 2007). There are public, institutional, and business policies related to health care developed by hospitals, accrediting organizations, or managed care organizations (Abood, 2007). A policy is implemented to improve the health among people in the United States. Some policies

One of the most controversial bill was made a law on March 23, 2010. President Obama signed the bill that passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more commonly referred to as Obama Care. “The ACA represents the most sweeping reform since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965”(Shi&Singh, p. 111). The opposition to implementation to ACA should not have come as a surprise and certainly was not implemented as smoothly as intended. It was passed via compromise, thus creating loop holes in a fragile new system in the infancy stage. Such a drastic, yet necessary, reformation in health care came at a time of financial insecurity in a nation that is only a few years out of a recession. Taking on the responsibility

Healthcare in the United States has reached a level of complexity which has perplexed Presidents, Congressional members and private industry for over a century (Palmer, 1999). While the healthcare system has evolved over the last century, policy decisions which have attempted to effectuate changes to cost, quality and access have been

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Accompanied by a strong sense of disapproval from the public, which resulted in a rush to get the bill passed and deadlines tightened to make sure things were on the agenda on time. A debate ensued among the bill’s supporters regarding the importance of public opinion surrounding the ACA. The vast majority of supporters concluded it is only a minor part of the reform and not a critical component. The ACA has only been in effect for the past few years, and this short time gap makes assessing definitive effects of the ACA difficult. Success in in terms of the ACA is hard to define. This is due to the intentions set forth by the government being genially vague and ambiguous. Even so, with the ACA’s rapid movement through the design process many inconsistences in the reporting and managing of the proposed healthcare policy were noted. This led to an underestimation of the costs and overestimation of the perceived benefits. The result of the cost-benefit analysis and reviews of alternative methods were forgone in order to pass quick regulations. Furthermore, regulators failed to consider the moral hazards of the new rules, which are a result of people changing their habits because they don 't have to worry about the outcomes. For instance, people may smoke or drink more knowing that insurance will pay for any medical treatment. Furthermore, people can use the services for relatively minor issues

In 1965, as part of his Great Society Legislation, President Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. With these two programs he concluded two decades of congressional debate of the future of health care. In the forty years to follow, the United States of America and its health care industry experienced dramatic changes. Population increased by over one hundred million people (Census Bureau), advances in medical technology supported a growing elderly population, diets and lifestyle habits changed, and health care costs outpaced both per capita GDP and wages. By 2010, America was long overdue for health care reform. That year, President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act (also the ACA or Obamacare), an ambitious plan of over 400 provisions for one of the nation’s most complex and powerful industries—an industry upon which millions of lives depend. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 fails to fully address the fundamental problems with American health care system, but serves a necessary and promising starting point for such comprehensive reform.

The health care, policy-making process is composed of three major stages; the formulation stage, legislative stage, and the implementation stage. The policy process refers to the specific decisions and events that are required for a policy to be proposed, considered, and finally either implemented and/or set aside. It is an interactive process with multiple points of access providing opportunities to influence the multiple decision makers involved at each stage (Abood, 2007). Each stage presents a unique set of events for a policy to be proposed, considered, and either implemented or rejected. In the formulation stage there is

Patel, Kant; Rushefsky, Mark E (2014-12-18). Healthcare Politics and Policy in America: 2014 (p. 87). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

In 1915, reformers issued the first major proposal for national health insurance in the United States. In 1929, the first current group health insurance plan was formed. Since that time, Americans have relied on private insurance to help protect their families. Across the nation health insurance has provided a level of comfort when a medical situation arises. Policyholders know that there will be reliable services as well as assistance with the costs. Since the passing of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, there has been agitation in Washington, and it continues to be a topic for arguments among Americans. Even though healthcare has always been a priority, an important part of our lives, the ACA, and its provisions are detrimental. The

Health policies, whether allocative or regulatory, are presented, debated, and decided on through the legislative process. It is the responsibility of all nurses to understand the many steps to this process, recognize problems that require attention, and know how they are able to influence the decision making process (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). The required steps for a bill to become a law include: introduction, committee consideration, floor scheduling, House and Senate consideration, difference resolution, and Presidential action. Only after successful passage through all steps can a bill be delivered for submission into public law.

The most important stakeholder in the healthcare policymaking is probably the patient. In Massachusetts, the Act provided “nearly universal health insurance coverage” (case study). In 2009 the

The concept of providing basic healthcare services to individuals in need has undergone an agonizing transition, from a luxury once only afforded by the affluent to a basic human right granted to citizens of every economic station, and the recently enacted Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to finalize this ethical evolution. Reflecting perhaps the bitter political enmity currently consuming the nation's once cherished democratic process, Republican legislatures in states throughout the union have bristled at the ACA's primary provisions, threatening all manner of procedural protestation as they attempt to delay and derail the bill's eventual implementation. One of the most intriguing aspects of the sprawling, thousand page law, however, has been the stipulation that individual states will be given a choice to either accept federal funding to expand their statewide Medicaid roster, or to forfeit all federal funding for that program in perpetuity. The role of government in monitoring and regulating the healthcare industry has been long debated, and the bitterly contested passage of President Obama's ACA, a law aimed at revising the country's health insurance system through the creating of a federal health insurance exchange to facilitate increased competition among insurers, has rekindled the debate over who holds the ultimate responsibility for regulating the care provided by hospitals, community clinics, and private practices.

At the beginning of this article, the author brings up the fields of policy studies, how to understand the policy making and how they