Health Care Policy.

Posted: January 9th, 2023

Health Care Policy.

Select a current or proposed health care policy that is designed to improve a specific population’s access to quality, cost-effective health care. In a paper of 1,000-1,250 words, include the following: Explain the policy and how it is designed to improve cost-effectiveness and health care equity for the population. Is the policy financially sound? Why or why not? How does the policy account for any relevant ethical, legal, and political factors and the nursing perceptive one must consider when implementing it? To what state, federal, global health policies or goals is this particular policy related? How well do you think the policy is designed to achieve those goals? Finally, discuss the advocacy strategies you would employ on behalf of your population to ensure they have access to the benefits of the policy. Health Care Policy.

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            Explain, from a Christian perspective, the professional and moral obligation of advanced registered nurse to advocate for and promote health and prevent disease among diverse populations. You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion. You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.Health Care Policy.

Health Care Policy

Introduction

Access to quality, cost-effective care is vital for the promotion of health and achievement of health equity for all people in United States. Health insurance is one scheme to enable people to access quality and affordable care. Inadequate or lack of coverage makes it difficult for patients to access care due to high health care costs. The paper discusses the Affordable Care Act as a policy designed to improve access to quality and cost-effective health care for vulnerable populations.Health Care Policy.

How the policy was designed to improve cost-effectiveness and health care equity for the population

The Patient Protection and Affordable care Actor simply the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a health care reform policy designed to improve health care equity and cost-effectiveness for vulnerable populations. The escalating costs of health care and subsequent fraction uninsured citizens along with the need to improve care quality and safety led to the designing of ACA. Also known as Obamacare, the ACA is a federal reform law that was enacted in 2010. The legislation was designed to improve the delivery and control the costs of health care. According to Edelman et al., (2017), the core element of the health care law is to lessen the fraction people without insurance by expanding the Medicaid program for more people to meet the criteria for the expanded enrolment and establishing marketplace subsidies for middle and low-income persons to help costs of premiums. The ACA is intended to address issues of financing, accessibility, and affordability of health care, with efforts focused on meeting those health care needs of vulnerable populations.Health Care Policy.

The ACA has radically transformed American health care financing and delivery. However, health policy does not seem to be financially sound. The ACA has led to a rise in the number of people with health insurance cover. More than 20 million individuals were previously uninsured are now insured. Nevertheless, there has been a loss of insurance for around six million people. The ACA has led to the loss of coverage for the middle- class and working individuals who are cannot afford to pay for premiums. This group constitutes forty percent of the populace and do not get any assistance, which makes them incur huge e out of pocket, costs (Machinkanti et al., 2017).Health Care Policy.

The ACA accounts for several political and legal factors. The implementation of numerous provisions of the health care policy has required considerable transformations in government insurance programs and regulations of the private health insurance market. According to Callaghan and Jacobs (2016), a key contested ACA’s provision was requisite for United States legal residents and citizens to possess health insurance or face a federal penalty starting 2014. In 2012, the Supreme Court made a ruling that was in favor of the constitutionality of the provision and upheld the obligatory for the individual mandate. Nevertheless, the court also made a ruling that states had the option of expanding or not expanding their Medicaid programs without the risk of losing funding. This has led to twenty states rejecting Medicaid expansion. The overriding account for the unequal implementation of Medicaid extension as a major ACA’s provision is the superlative power of political partisanship.Health Care Policy.

When implementing ACA, nurses should consider providing quality, cost-effective care. Regulations consequent to the ACA connect quality to reimbursement. A key objective of the ACA is the promotion of state regulation of health insurance markets through directing reimbursement. Cleveland et al., (2019) alleges that these regulations mandate insurers to present yearly reports to Health and Human Services to guarantee that their plans improve health outcomes via activities like quality reporting, chronic disease management, care coordination, and case management; implements activities to advert hospital readmission; implement activities to lessen medical errors and improve patient safety, and implement health promotion and wellness. The financial effect of these regulations entails monetary fines for low-quality care. As partners with physicians, nurses offer exceptional disciplinary expertise to help financial stakeholders to come up with patient-centered and programmatic innovations that increases value via increasing quality.Health Care Policy.

State, federal, and global health goals to which the policy is related

The health care policy is related to the global, federal, and state goals of lessening health care costs and improving health care accessibility for populations. Since the ability of an individual to access health care to a larger part depends on the availability of resources, health insurance greatly contributes to accessibility and affordability health care. As Hicks (2020) indicates, the ACA contains mandatory coverage provisions. To offer coverage for most citizens and legal residents mean that populations must participate to avert considerable increases in premiums.Health Care Policy.

The ACA is well designed to achieve the aforementioned goals. According to Mclntyre and Song (2019),   The ACA used two major schemes to expand insurance coverage. First, the policy developed state-based marketplace exchanges via which people could compare identical coverage options and select which coverage. The ACA also offered households with up to 400 percent of FDL and low-income individuals with subsidies in a bid to help them buy health insurance. In addition, health law reformed private in a significant way. It developed novel federal consumer protections, notably prohibiting private insurers refusing to provide coverage for individuals who have preexisting conditions or charging higher premiums for these individuals with the ACA’s provision for dependent coverage enabling children who are twenty-six years old or less to remain on the insurance of their parents.Health Care Policy.

Advocacy strategies a nurse can employ to ensure the population have access to the benefits of the policy

The implementation of the ACA has made millions of people who were previously uninsured to get health insurance. This has led to an increase in demand for health care services in the face of the increasing shortage of nursing staff. A nurse can employ numerous advocacy strategies on behalf of their populations to ensure they can gain from the benefits provided by the ACA. A nurse can advocate for training and hiring more nurses, physicians, care coordinators, and expansion of the existing or opening new health care sites. Gentili et al., (2016) claim that inadequate availability of health care providers, including physicians and advanced practice clinicians can make individuals forgo or experience delays in obtaining health care services, and subsequently worsen patients’ conditions. A nurse can also advocate for the acknowledgment of nurses as full partners with physicians, with the ability to offer quality and safe care other than been seen as substituting physicians.Health Care Policy.

From a Christian worldview, nurses are professionally and morally obligated to advocate for and promote health and prevent illness among diverse populations. Professional nursing includes promoting health and advocating for the care of their patients. In Timothy 2:2 Paul tells people to live in godliness and dignity. Thus, a nurse should respect the rights and dignity of patients, and treats them compassionately. According to Raee, et al. (2017), dignity is a basic need for healthy as well as unhealthy human beings, but the occurrence of illness can threaten human dignity. Because of their increased reliance on health care providers for their care, patients may experience loss of dignity.   Respect for human dignity is a responsibility and a right, and nurses have the responsibility of promoting the dignity and interests of their patients.Health Care Policy.

Conclusion

The Accountable Care Act is an influential health care policy that has tremendously increased health care coverage for millions of Americans and reduced health care costs. Designed to increase health insurance for vulnerable populations, the ACA has increased coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions and low and middle-income individuals. The legislation has also improved the quality of care since nurses and other health care providers are required to deliver quality care failure to which monetary fines for low-quality care are imposed on them. Nurses are required to provide quality care as well as to advocate on behalf of patients to ensure the populations they serve can achieve the benefits of the provisions of the ACA.Health Care Policy.