Formulate a public health policy.

Formulate a public health policy. The paper should have an executve summary that outlines how policies are being adopted to ensure equity, an introduction that will give the professor a hint of what isgoing to be covered in the paper, and a conclusion that will smmariza the main ideas capture in the paper. The body of the paper should address the importance of the policy in public administration, the laws that govern the policy, the constraints and competing perspectives, and the recommendations for teh proposed plan. The recommendations should address the SWOT anaysis for the proposed plan. Finally, the paper should address the challenges, opportunities and the beneficiaries after the implementation of the plan.

 

 

Public Health Policy

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Executive Summary

The affordable healthcare act is a public policy that has been put in place to ensure that equality is observed in the provision of Healthcare. The establishment of the plan is designed to improve the quality to reduce healthcare costs. The effectiveness of the public policies is that it ensures that public administrators can manage Medicare and Medicaid as individual markets are transformed to provide healthcare coverage through their beneficiaries. The Affordable Care Act is also important in public administration as it ensures that quality health care is offered to patients. The policy is considered to be effective in managing the rise of healthcare costs and in ensuring that millions can access preventative care for free. Moreover, the strategy is useful in creating equity in the access to insurance as regulations require that insurance companies do not deny anyone coverage for pre-existing conditions. This is a provision that has been guaranteed through the allowance that the government has given insurance companies to raise premiums on beneficiaries if they get sick.

Introduction

The Affordable Healthcare Act has is a public policy designed to provide members of the public with multiple healthcare benefits. The benefits of this policy will be felt by the citizenry who can access laboratory services, prescription drugs, emergency services, and maternity care. Public administrators have a critical role to play in the administration of the Affordable Care Act and in ensuring that it is efficient in delivering quality healthcare (Bert et al. 2015) Granted, a public administrator will be involved in coordinating healthcare solutions to offer rehabilitative services to patients. At the same time, public administrators will be able to mitigate incidences of health risks before they occur by designing programs that are aimed at promoting wellness (Shartzer et al. 2015). The affordable care act works through programs that are designed to manage chronic diseases and to ensure that the rates of hospitalization are considerably reduced. Public administrators will also be able to monitor healthcare services by providing that the uninsured have access to Healthcare and that businesses and corporations insure all their employees.

Importance of Policy in Public Administration

Public administration plays a crucial role in implementing the healthcare act by ensuring that the unemployed can access insurance coverage. The policy also allows children to stay on their parent’s health insurance plan up to the age of 26. States are also required to adopt insurance policies for its citizens, thereby ensuring that equitable global health coverage is provided (French et al. 2016). At the same time, public administration has benefited dramatically as the Department of Health can monitor whether businesses are offering insurance plans to their employees. Effectively, the budget deficit in Healthcare has been considerably reduced while increasing the efficiency of healthcare policies.

Laws That Govern the Policy

The Affordable care act governs universal Healthcare coverage in the United States of America. The law has designed a structure to integrate the services of Medicare Medicaid. At the same time, the existing legislation has enumerated health benefits that are to be received by patients affected by the universal Healthcare policy (Bert et al. 2015). The law has created a compulsory system designed to ensure that every American can access Healthcare by paying a subsidized insurance premium. The existing legislation is beneficial to the citizenry as it has created stringent laws which prevent insurers from denying coverage to individuals who report pre-existing conditions (Lanford & Quadagno, 2016). Premiums are also designed to be equal, even as states are required to provide essential health benefits. Some of the provisions of the legislation are for healthcare centers to provide include hospitalization services, mental health, and substance abuse services, maternity care, behavioral health treatment and laboratory services (French et al. 2016). Insurance companies are also prohibited from dropping policyholders once they fall ill. the benefit to patients is that they are required to pay the same premium if they are determined to be of the same age and if they live in the same conditions as other beneficiaries of the program.

Constraints and Competing Perspectives

Though the Affordable Healthcare act was publicized for being an effective way of ensuring universal health coverage have been opposed by insurance companies and by politicians. Political leaders have argued that the Affordable care act does provide solutions to health care challenges as it denies patients a variety of treatment options. Most political leaders say that the policy is a one-size-fits-all policy which is not suitable for patients with different medical conditions (Bert et al. 2015). At the same time, insurance companies have opposed the provisions of the Affordable care act, arguing that being forced to offer an insurance plan without assessing the risk level of the patient is detrimental to industry operations. Most insurance companies have argued that the policy should be repealed to consider the risk factor of patients before they are awarded insurance policies.

Different suggestions have been provided as alternatives for the Affordable care act. One of the other options is direct health insurance, which is considered to be beneficial as most industry stakeholders describe it as a system with more extensive health networks and treatment options (Lanford & Quadagno, 2016). Short-term insurance plans are also regarded as an alternative as they are less costly since they only incur 50% of the costs of the current affordable care plan (French et al. 2016) At the same time, unlimited benefit plans have been proposed as these are affordable insurance programs which are deemed to be costing as low as $70 per month. Subsidizing primary medical insurance is also regarded to be a useful measure of providing quality health care at an affordable cost.

Recommendations for The Proposed Plan

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

One of the strengths of the Affordable care act is that it is a public policy that provides universal health care to all patients regardless of their employment status or their income levels (French et al. 2016). This ensures that the quality of Healthcare is maintained in offering its services to healthcare centers.

Weaknesses

The major weakness of the Affordable care act is in recommending specified options to all patients regardless of their income levels or their pre-existing conditions (Bert et al. 2015). This a challenge to the accessibility of treatment options due to the restrictions of the new policy.

Opportunities

The opportunities of the Affordable care act lie in the fact that the policy can attract increased funding from Congress. if Congress determines that the legislation has been effective in providing quality health care and quality it could increase its funding levels and the efficiency levels of the public policy (Lanford & Quadagno, 2016).

Threats

The threat to the Affordable care act emanates from available options in the healthcare industry which are associated with alternatives such as the provision of direct Healthcare by designing healthcare policies that are tailor-made to meet the needs of each patient (French et al. 2016).

Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing Proposed Plan and Beneficiaries

The challenges of implementing the public policy that offers universal health care coverage are incessant opposition from politicians. Republican lawmakers have argued that the implementation of the law is unnecessarily expensive and inconsequential in increasing the quality of health care. The political debate has resulted in a situation where there are disputes in financing the program. Some states have even argued that they need to withdraw their support from the healthcare plan, adding that it is too expensive for them (Bert et al. 2015). In spite of the challenges that exist in implementing universal health care coverage, there are multiple benefits and opportunities. One of the significant opportunities is improving quality healthcare and ensuring that every patient can access healthcare services once they fall ill (Shartzer et al. 2015

Conclusion

The purpose of the public administrator in enforcing the Affordable care act is to monitor businesses corporations and institutions to ensure that they implement the provisions of the law. It is essential for public administrators to liaise with state officials to determine that every state is compliant in monitoring the citizenry to ensure that they are all the registered to receive health care services under the Affordable care act (Bert et al. 2015). At the same time, the public administration could conduct a ground survey to ensure that insurance companies do not lock out beneficiaries due to pre-existing health conditions. Finally, the role of the public administrator is to monitor the effectiveness of the policy by determining whether it has improved the quality of Healthcare in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Bert, F., Scaioli, G., Gualano, M. R., & Siliquini, R. (2015). How can we bring public health in all policies? Strategies for healthy societies. Journal of Public Health Research, 4(1), 43-46.

French, M. T., Homer, J., Gumus, G., & Hickling, L. (2016). Key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA): a systematic review and presentation of early research findings. Health services research, 51(5), 1735-1771.

Lanford, D., & Quadagno, J. (2016). Implementing Obamacare: The politics of Medicaid expansion under the affordable care act of 2010. Sociological Perspectives, 59(3), 619-639.

Shartzer, A., Long, S. K., & Anderson, N. (2015). Access to care and affordability have improved following the Affordable Care Act implementation; problems remain. Health Affairs, 35(1), 161-168.