Public Policy on Health Essay

Public policies are initiated at national or at state level in order to improve the health status of the citizens in the country. Health care policies are usually made to improve on the access to health care, improve the quality of health care and to reduce the cost of health care. Nurses are always situated to be the best advocates in fronting for the relevant public policies that are of benefit to the citizens of the country or state. In this paper, we take a look at the public policy on the Affordable Health Care act has an effect on the patients and nursing profession.

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The affordable Health Care act popularly known as the Obama Care was introduced in the year 2010 with the primary goal of ensuring more people get access to quality health at an affordable cost. Since the inception of Obama Care, it has been reported that 20 million more citizens have had access to medical cover. (Sanger-Kartz, 2017). This shows that Obama care is in the right direction to achieve the primary objective it was set for.

The Obama care may have increased the number of those who have access to medical care but the quality may have been seriously jeopardized. For instance, there was a reduction of the remunerations of home healthcare providers were reduced by $ 60 million. This means that there is a reduction in the number of homecare workers available to help patients.

The Obama Care has had an improved impact on the nursing profession. The Obama Care means that treatment move away from hospitals to outpatient care. This means that nurses had more places to choose from as their work places. Additionally, nurses who looked to advance their training in the outpatient care had their training costs covered under the Affordable Care Act (All Nursing school).

Health Issue

There has been over prescription of drugs and increased prices that Obama Care needs to cater for. The Obama care required that drug prescription be covered by the insurers. However, data show that this has not been the case (Millstein, 2017). Every day, in our hospitals there are more of out of pocket prescription of drugs which means that the patients still have an additional cost. There is need for a policy that will address the accessibility of drugs among the American citizen.

Kingdons Model

To propose my policy that would affect the accessibility of drugs within under n insurance cover, there is need to identify the problem stream. My problem stream is that more patients are not facing drug accessibility because most hospitals do not give it under the insurance cover. I recognize that there are other policies that are related to this problem. The political leadership will also need to influence the policy. This political leadership entails involvement of the stake holders in various health departments to also weigh in their opinion in what they think of the policy. The policy stream, problem stream and the political stream of my policy issue will interact to come up with the best policy for the citizens of this country.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my health issue is on the accessibility of drugs. The Affordable Care Act is supposed to have addressed the challenge on accessibility to health care including accessibility to drugs under the care. However, this has not been the everyday practice in our health set ups. Most prescribe drugs then patients buy out of their own pockets. This is what my policy seeks to address so that we have more people accessing drugs.

References

Sanger-Katz ( 5th February 2017). Grading Obamacare: Successes, Failures and 'Incompletes'. *NewYorkTimes* retrieved on 9th April 2018 from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/upshot/grading-obamacare-successes-failures-and-incompletes.html

All Nursing school. How the Affordable Care Act Has Impacted Nursing.* All nursing school* retrieved on 9th April 2018 from https://www.allnursingschools.com/articles/obamacare-and-nursing/

Millstein s ( 16th Jan 2017). How Will The Obamacare Repeal Affect Prescription Drug Coverage?*Bustle* retrieved on 9th April 2018 from https://www.bustle.com/p/how-will-the-obamacare-repeal-affect-prescription-drug-coverage-30856