Healthcare Policies in the United States
Part 1: comparison grid for healthcare agendas
The last three presidential administrations of the U.S have been led by George Bush, Barrack Obama, and Donald Trump. In each of the terms of service of the above presidents, the United States’ health sector has experienced immense growth and transformation through various policies that have been planned and implemented by each one of them. In 2004, President George Bush outlined his agenda of transforming the healthcare industry through innovation and technology. His healthcare agenda was referred to as ‘the President’s Health Information Technology Plan’. The goal of this healthcare plan was to ensure that Americans have electronic health records in the next ten years. He believed that better health information technology would help him achieve his vision of a healthcare system that fully addresses the needs of the patients (Patel & Rushefsky, 2014). This would also reduce the number of annual deaths due to medical errors. George Bush also tried to improve private health insurance as a way of increasing coverage and generally reduce the cost of healthcare. He also tried to bring into effect the 2003 Medicare Prescription drug benefit which would reduce the costs of healthcare. This, however, never became a law it lost its power to the Obamacare.
President Barrack Obama’s healthcare reform was legislated in 2010 in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. His healthcare reform is commonly known as the Obamacare and its focus was on reducing healthcare costs and ensuring affordable healthcare for every American and improve the quality of life for Americans who lacked a health insurance cover (Hummer, 2018). Particularly, the Affordable Care Act would lower the costs of emergency treatments and treatments of chronic illnesses, which are considered the most expensive healthcare costs (Hummer, 2018). President Trump’s healthcare agenda is to reduce the costs of drugs, combat and end HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States by 2030, and increase funding for combating childhood cancers. A quick analysis of the healthcare policies of the above presidents shows that they all had a common agenda of making healthcare affordable to most of the Americans and ensuring high-quality life for every American regardless of their income level. This agenda is set to help the marginalized communities and the poor have equal access to quality healthcare.
One of the health issues that I would propose for the inclusion into the health agenda is the issue of physical and emotional wellness of individuals. This relates to the lifestyles that people embrace every day in a bid to keep fit and avoid some illnesses that are lifestyle-related. It includes creating awareness of healthy lifestyles for both physical and emotional wellness and ways to deal with minor health issues naturally without having to seek medical attention. This issue, if incorporated as part of the healthcare agenda, will go a long way to reducing healthcare costs and help in the achievement of the healthcare agenda and goals. The Health Resources and Service Administration is the agency that would be most appropriate to address the issues pertaining to affordable access to healthcare. The public health service agency will also play a key role in addressing the issues related to the physical and emotional wellness program which I propose to the policymakers. The issue of affordable healthcare was greatly championed by President Barrack Obama and has later been reinforced by Donald Trump. The Federal government is a key sponsor of this program.
Part 2: fact sheet for the agenda of affordable healthcare
• I am convinced beyond doubt that Affordable healthcare agenda is one that should be given a priority and the current presidential administration and the group of concerned policymakers must put their best foot forward to ensure that the agenda is fully implemented and sustained for the current and future generations.
• Ensuring access to affordable healthcare for every citizen will go a long way to ensuring that the population is healthy and this will ultimately reduce the cost of healthcare.
• Sometimes, chronic diseases and conditions that require palliative care emerge because people do not have the finances to visit a clinic at an early stage of the disease and only wait when it is at an advanced stage. This increases the number of people requiring palliative care.
• This is contrary to the situation where people have access to affordable healthcare and visit hospitals early enough for the treatment of the disease, making them still be able to do most activities on their own.
• Therefore, this policy would ultimately reduce healthcare costs.
• Additionally, a healthy population is a productive population. If people are healthy, they will be more productive at their places of work and this will increase the country’s output ultimately. Nurses are the people that are most aware of the issues that challenge the health sector and must, therefore, be part of the team that sets up a healthcare agenda (Choi, 2015). Their advocacy role to change the policies that affect the healthcare sector for the better must not be overlooked.
• Nurses have an expert power that most people do not have and as such, they are better placed to recommend issues that are necessary to ensure that the process of healthcare provision is improved.
References
Choi, P. P. (2015). Patient advocacy: the role of the nurse. Nursing Standard (2014+), 29(41), 52.
Hummer, R. A. (2018). Beyond Obamacare: Life, Death, and Social Policy.
Patel, K., & Rushefsky, M. E. (2014). Healthcare politics and policy in America. Public Integrity, 17(1), 94-96.
