Personal Legislative Agenda: Affordable and Accessible Health Care to All
This legislative agenda focuses on better access to and affordability of healthcare to the
entire public. My policy agenda focuses on expanding insurance through mandatory Medicaid
expansion and the introduction of a public option within the Affordable Care Act changes. It is a
call for providing more health options for low0incomeindividuals and families through increased
competition among private insurers as an incentive to lower costs. Furthermore, it is crucial to
improve transparency in healthcare pricing, which all providers and insurers are called upon to
outline the costs of normal medical procedures and provide real-time estimates to patients. It is
an opportunity and way of enabling informed decisions and choices to control healthcare
expenditures.
The personal policy agenda plan also focuses on high prescription costs. This will be
addressed by allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prescription drug prices with
pharmaceutical companies and capping lifesaving medication prices like insulin. Furthermore, to
address challenges and concerns with rural health, especially for the health providers serving
underserved areas. This legislative agenda will lead promote and ensure more equity and
efficiency in the entire health system catering to the citizens' needs, more so the marginalized
and vulnerable populations.
Questions
How do I ensure that the introduction of a public option does not have unintended
consequences, such as destabilizing the private insurance markets?
The question highlights the concern of the possibility of disrupting potential private insurers,
including advice on ensuring a public option that complements the current system and now
weakening it, to ensure healthy competition and provider choices to consumers.
What would be the best strategies against the political opposition with the high influence of
the pharmaceutical lobby to be in a position to push Medicare negotiations of prescription
medication prices?
Pharmaceutical companies are against policies questioning their pricing powers and may be
resistant, especially from legislators who are supported by the same industry. This question
discusses the strategies for coalition-building and communicating the benefits of negotiating
drug prices to the public and policymakers.
Responses
Linda, your points are well taken on several barriers facing advanced practice nurses within the
State of Texas. It's even more astonishing how health facilities, despite being in big numbers
within Texas, still have parts where access to care is an issue, most of them being rural areas.
This, however, can easily be improved through full practice authority granted to NPs since these
are the kind of professionals who are more willing to serve at-risk populations. For policy
reform, licensed Advanced Practice Practitioners can engage nursing associations such as the
Texas Nurse Practitioners (TNP) in grassroots advocacy to meet with legislators and present
research that supports full practice authority. Activism through lobbying efforts or the provision
of funds to advocacy groups may provide a louder voice for the healthcare providers requesting
such changes (Porche, 2023).
Reference
Porche, D. J. (2023).2Health policy: Applications for nurses and other healthcare
professionals(3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Fri Florence Fon
Fri, this attention to the equitable access to quality health care through Medicaid is quite
critical, since Medicaid provides a lifeline for low-income populations. Such bills on Medicaid
or issues of access to care could be tracked by registering for alerts in the various legislative
advocacy organizations and using Congress for healthcare bills (Shrank et al., 2021). The other
big barriers to equitable primary care involve the political opposition to Medicaid expansion and
difficulties securing sustainable funding for such programs. Overcoming these barriers requires
collaboration with stakeholders to build bipartisan support and community outreach that furthers
progress toward equity in healthcare access.
Reference
Shrank, W. H., DeParle, N., Gottlieb, S., Jain, S. H., Orszag, P., Powers, B. W. & Wilensky,
G. R. (2021). Health costs and financing: Challenges and strategies for a new
administration.2Health Affairs, 40(2)
