ESSAY: Health Policy

Examine how current policies impact how you as a nurse provide health care. You will then select an issue of interest and determine how you could advocate for policy in that area.

To prepare:

• Select one public policy that currently is impacting you and your practice. Consider the following:
  • What health care driver was the policy designed to address: cost, quality, access, or a combination?
  • Does the policy appear to be achieving its intended results? On what data are you basing your assumption?
  • What have been the effects (adverse or positive) of this policy on health care cost, quality, and access?
  • How is this policy affecting your nursing practice?
• Next, select a health care issue—something you see or experience on a daily basis—about which you would like to influence a practice change through the policy process.
• Review the Learning Resources, focusing on Kingdon’s Model. How would you utilize this model to guide your policy development?

Post a brief description of a public policy that is having an impact on your practice; summarize your analysis of the policy using the bulleted list above as a guide. Then, summarize the issue you would like to influence though a change in public policy, and outline how you would utilize Kingdon’s Model to guide your policy development. Please provide 3 current references (within five years), with citations

ANSWER

Health Policy

One of the public policy that impacts nursing practice is the Affordable Care Act of the year 2010. Research and nursing experience has established that though the Affordable Care Act was formulated to help the U.S citizens to access healthcare at affordable cost, it has turned out to be a barrier. According to the Census Bureau Report, by the year 2015, the country had more than 29 million people with no healthcare coverage (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2018).  

Even with the health care reforms that target to reduce the number of uninsured people in order to achieve the mandated benefits, the access to affordable healthcare still faces problems that are escalated by the limited community-based resources in providing primary care access, preventive services and ongoing patient care with chronic conditions (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2018). As such, the current situation implies that there is a need to enhance the capacity in order to serve more patients, reduce health disparities, improve patient’s outcome and enhance more efficient operations. This argument is based on the Census Bureau report statistics on insured people and the American College of Health Executives.   

            The Affordable Health Care though it was meant to increase access to health care, it has caused significant disparities in the access of care, reduced the capacity to serve more patients, and has seen patients at critical conditions denied services due to lack of insurance coverage (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2018). Per se, this policy acts as a barrier to accessing health care among the uninsured and has seen the cost of care skyrocket. In fact, the effort to expand the ACA has seen a strain on resources which has led various organizations to financial peril and thus there is a need to establish payment levels. The Affordable Health Care Act also affects me as a nurse because I am guided by the principle that a patient should not be deprived of healthcare services based on their financial situations or owing to lack of insurance cover. Before ACA was enacted the then law required the healthcare facilities to offer emergency medical services to any individual irrespective of their financial capabilities. With the enactment of ACA, patient only receives substandard stabilizing care which does not help them to regain their health (Chan, 2017). As a concerned nurse, I find myself torn between offering stabilizing care which risks between…