#3 Health Policy

Group Project 2 pages

On April 9, 2003 the U.S. congressional Subcommittee on Health (part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce) heard testimony from various witnesses on the topic "Strengthening and Improving Medicare."

Since that time, the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA ) was passed to extend the life of Medicare programming. Part of this legislation involved the passage of Part D (Prescription Drug Insurance). Another significant part of this legislation involved various Pay For Performance (P4P) incentives. In this project you will read the short paper on Medicare Reform. Then you will search the Internet and Online Library for at least 3 articles (2003 or newer) summarizing recent legislation/changes related to Medicare Part A-D programming.

The following document is a report on Medicare Reform to be used in this assignment, Click here.

Part 1 (Group): Summarize and share witness testimony

Your job is to summarize and synthesize the most recent Medicare related legislation from the articles located as a group and analyze what impact this will have on the involved stakeholders (i.e., patients, providers, third-party payers).  

Individual Assignment 1 page

Part 2 (Individual): Provide a forecast for Medicare Reform

Include a prediction of how this Medicare legislation will impact the life of the Medicare program. Lastly, you must propose at least 1 change to the current Medicare legislation that will extend the life of the program beyond 2026.

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Discussion Board 3-4 paragraphs

J.W. Kingdon describes the agenda setting stage of policy formulation as a function of the confluence of three "streams" of activities: problems, possible solutions to the problems, and political circumstances (see Longest page 163). According to this metaphor, all three streams must be present for the policymaking process to move to the legislation development phase.

After reading information about President Clinton’s Health Reform Proposal of 1993 (also known as “Hillary-Care), which did not pass the Congressional/Senate voting approval, and information regarding the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obama-Care), which did pass and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Summer of 2012, discuss the similarities and differences between the 2 acts. Also discuss why you think Clinton’s reform proposal was not enacted into law.