HEALTHCARE
POLICY ANALYSIS
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Introduction
•Life is increasingly becoming difficult for an average
American since, despite increasing living costs, the
minimum wage has remained relatively the same over a
long period.
•The costs of healthcare in the US have remained
relatively high for a long period (Anderlini, 2018).
•Many Americans rely on healthcare insurance to cater to
their health needs. With a stagnated minimum wage,
many cannot afford to pay for all bills, including
healthcare insurance, transportation, and healthcare bills.
Cont;
•Leigh (2016) says that if the federal
minimum wage is raised to $12, then
35.1 million Americans will improve.
•With a higher minimum wage, more
Americans will get jobs, which will
help them finance their expenses and
bills.
•In 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NIV), the
bible states that "For even when we
were with you, we gave you this rule:
"The one who is unwilling to work
shall not eat."
Cont;
•Given the health disparity in the US, public
health policy must be developed to remedy
its health disparity.
•In the past few years, there has been an
increasing number of uninsured people in
America because of the privatized nature of
healthcare insurance in the country.
•There are other countries that are
developed like the US, where all citizens
can easily get healthcare insurance.
•Unlike these countries, the US lacks a
nationwide healthcare system to cater to its
citizens' health needs.
Policy analysis and healthcare
insurance in the US
•Kraft & Furlong (2018) assert that policy
analysis is concerned with the public
participation process and debate about
making decisions that solve a public issue.
•Policy analysis entails five steps: rational
decision-making, contrast policy alternatives,
evaluative criteria, assessing the alternatives,
and finally drawing conclusions.
•In the rational decision-making stage, the
focus is on defining the problem and setting
the goals and objectives.
Cont;
•The second step on contrast policy
alternatives and in this step, questions
are focused on the policy options that
are considered relevant in dealing
with the problem.
•The third step is choosing the
evaluative criteria.
•This stage is about assessing the
available alternatives to determine
their potential.
Cont;
•The fourth step is assessing the alternatives.
•In this stage, the focus is on determining the
alternative that achieves the goal being sought.
•The last stage is drawing conclusions.
•After analyzing and evaluating the
alternatives, the final stage is choosing the best
alternative.
T ev criterion
•The evaluative criteria used during policy
analysis include efficient, equity, political
feasibility, liberty or freedom, administrative
feasibility, social acceptability, effectiveness,
and technical feasibility. The criterion for
effectiveness is concerned with the policy
achieving the target goals.
Cont;
•For the healthcare policy, the relevant
criterion is the equity, political, ethical and
economic criteria.
•Smith (2015) defines health equity as a
principal goal that is achieved through
formulating health policies.
•WHO (2011) asserts that reducing health
disparity is essential because good health
is a right for every human.
•A commitment to health equity and the
mission of public health to enhance
community health requires attention to
the distribution of health benefits and
burdens among population groups.
Cont;
•Even though health is essential for every
individual, some people cannot access
these healthcare services because of
inadequate money or lack of health
insurance.
•Reducing these health inequalities is vital
to ensuring every person has to access to
quality healthcare.
•There are homeless people and immigrants
in the US who lack access to quality care
because they lack insurance or cannot
legally use insurance.
Major agencies
involved
•Healthcare policy involves many
people and agencies.
•Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists,
among other healthcare workers, play
an essential role in ensuring patients
receive good care.
•Another agency is the insurance
companies.
•The insurance companies are affected
by the healthcare policies and
therefore they have to be involved in
policy making.
Cont;
•The private sector offers most healthcare insurance in the US, with a
small percentage of Americans being covered by public insurance.
•Increasing healthcare insurance coverage will affect these insurance
companies depending on the decision taken by the government.
•Healthcare agencies are also involved in the development of
healthcare policy.
•The involvement of the US Department of Health in the creation of
the healthcare policy is essential because the agency is responsible
for the provision of healthcare services in the country.
P mak process : D
analysi o problem
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•P such M Medicar are
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A use.
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Cont;
•The consequences of the budget cuts that
the Trump administration is pursuing are
that the vulnerable will lack access to
healthcare insurance coverage, which will
negatively affect health access in the
country.
•Currently, the US is the only developed
country that lacks a stable healthcare
insurance system that caters to its entire
population.
•The challenges with the US insurance
system and, generally, the healthcare
system is that it has been liberalized, and
the market forces control the industry
Policy making process:
Policy alternatives
•There are various ways that the government
can use to ensure more Americans are
covered by healthcare insurance.
•One way is through the regulation of the
healthcare insurance industry.
•Regulations are the primary way of solving
issues globally.
•Straube (2012) says that US government
regulations have, in the past, led to the
increased access to healthcare access in the
nation.
•The government can, therefore, formulate
policies that ensure insurance companies
provide coverage to all Americans.
Cont;
•Another alternative is using taxes to influence
healthcare insurance policies.
•The government can waive the taxes for
healthcare insurance companies that are
providing coverage to many Americans.
•Other countries, such as Canada, have high
insurance coverage because they have a
national healthcare insurance system.
Policy making process:
Evaluative criteria
•The evaluative criteria during policy analysis focus
on economic, ethical, and political considerations.
•Developing laws for regulating the healthcare
insurance industry is politically feasible since many
politicians in the country are decrying about healthcare
costs in the country.
•Economically, regulating the healthcare insurance
sector is feasible because the insurance companies
have to comply with the regulations or be penalized.
•Regulations are also ethically feasible since they
promote healthcare access for all Americans. These
regulations are sustainable since the healthcare
insurance companies have to comply with them.
Cont;
•Relying on taxation to achieve government
goals is ethically viable since the target is
increased healthcare coverage for Americans.
•Economically, waiving taxes is not feasible.
When the government waives taxes, then it might
not collect enough money to fund its operations.
•On creating a public-owned healthcare
insurance agency, the policy is ethically viable
since it meets the goal of increasing healthcare
coverage.
•The plan is politically feasible because a
national-owned healthcare insurance agency will
provide wider insurance coverage to all Americans.
•Economically, the policy might not be feasible
since the finances to start and run such an agency
are huge.
Policy making process: Policy brief
•Healthcare accessibility is essential for all
Americans since it leads to better healthcare
outcomes in the country.
•Immigrants, the homeless, and poor Americans
are significantly affected by the absence of
adequate healthcare coverage.
•The possible policies for solving inadequate
healthcare insurance in the country are
formulating regulations to ensure insurance
companies provide medical covers
indiscriminately, creating a public-owned
insurance agency, and using tax cuts and waivers
to encourage insurance companies to offer
healthcare insurance coverage.
Cont;
•The policy criteria used in evaluating
the policy alternatives are economic,
ethical, and political considerations.
•From the assessment, it is evident that
formulating regulations to compel
insurance companies to provide
medical covers indiscriminately meets
is a good alternative in increasing
healthcare coverage in the country.
•Therefore, the government should
create policies focused on increasing
healthcare insurance coverage in the
country.
Policy making process: Conclusion
•Good healthcare is the right of every
American, which is possible by
increasing healthcare coverage in the
country.
•The liberalization of the healthcare
system has made healthcare insurance
expensive for many Americans.
•Compared to other developed
countries, the US lags in healthcare
coverage as countries like Canada
have functional healthcare coverage
systems that cover all citizens.
Conclusion
•The policy analysis process is crucial in solving
issues that affect society.
•The government has to increase its control over the
healthcare insurance industry to ensure that more
Americans have good healthcare coverage.
•The possible policies that could be undertaken to
increase healthcare coverage in the country are
formulating regulations to ensure insurance
companies provide healthcare coverage
indiscriminately, offering tax waivers, and creating a
national insurance agency to ensure more
Americans get more healthcare coverage.
•Formulating regulations is the most feasible
alternative, which can reduce healthcare coverage
disparities in the country.
R
•Anderlini Deanna. The United States Health Care System is Sick: From Adam Smith to Overspecialization.
Cureus. 2018 May; 10(5): e2720. Published online 2018 May 31. doi: 10.7759/cureus.2720
•Kraft Michael E. Scott R. Furlong. Public Policy Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives.
https://libertyonline.vitalsource.com/books/9781506358161
•Leigh, J. Paul. "Could Raising The Minimum Wage Improve The Public's Health?". American Journal Of Public
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•Maxwell J. Smith, Health Equity in Public Health: Clarifying our Commitment, Public Health Ethics, Volume 8,
Issue 2, July 2015, Pages 173–184, https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phu042
C ’
•Mukherjee Momin and Sahadev Roy. Feasibility Studies and Important Aspect of Project Management.
International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Management Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 98-100, 2017
https://ijoaem.org/00204-25
•Straube, Barry M. "A Role For Government". American Journal Of Preventive Medicine 44, no. 1 (2013):
S39-S42. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2012.09.009.
•WHO. “Equity.” Last modified June 8, 2011. Accessed October 10, 2020.
https://www.who.int/healthsystems/topics/equity/en/.
