Can someone please help my with this i will really appreciate it.

Can someone please help my with this i will really appreciate it.
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Week 2: Health Policy and Health Care ReformUnit ObjectivesAfter completing this unit, you should be able toidentify health reform eForts that have shaped our health care systemdescribe the health policy process, from need identi±cation to policy implementation andmodi±cationidentify and describe major components of the Patient Protection and AFordable Care Act(ACA)Unit LectureThe United States spends over 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care(Kaiser Permanente International, 2011) and spends more money per capita on health care thanany other industrialized nation, yet it is ranked 37 out of 191 nations in terms of health caresystem quality (WHO, 2000). Additionally, the United States has an alarming shortage of primarycare providers. This shortage is only going to become more problematic with the implementationof the Patient Protection and AFordable Care Act (ACA), which is meant to ensure the provision ofhealth insurance to approximately 30 million previously uninsured people (Bodenheimer & Pham,2010). Problems in the US health care system can largely be traced to previously implementedhealth policies or gaps therein; solutions will have to come from the drafting and administrationof new policies.Health policyis a subset of public policy, and can be de±ned as “the decisions, plans, andactions that are undertaken to achieve speci±c health care goals within a society” (WHO,2013).In other words, health policies are those decisions that concern the health of a populationand the provision of health care to that population. Health policies can be used to in²uence,orregulate, the actions, behaviors, and decisions of others, such as in requirements thatproviders be licensed or that health care facilities be accredited; or they can be usedtoallocateresources.Policies developed to allocate resources can be further broken down intodistributive policies(Shi& Singh, 2012), where the bene±ts are dispersed throughout society, such as with researchfunding or graduate medical training; andredistributive polices(Shi & Singh, 2012), whichreallocate resources for the bene±t of a certain group, as occurs with programs such as Medicareand Medicaid.Shi & Singh (2012) list several features of US health policy that act or interact with one anotherto diFerentiate our system from those of other industrialized nations. The ±rst diFerentiatingfeature is the subsidiary role the government plays to the private sector, with the majority ofhealth care ±nancing coming from private sources. The second feature is the adoption offragmented reform initiatives meant to serve as temporary “±xes” to isolated segments of thehealth care system, as opposed to the activation of long-term solutions meant to impact thesystem as a whole.The third feature is the presence of pluralistic politics, which aFects both suppliers anddemanders. Health care in the United States has numerous stakeholders, such as politicians,lobbyists, and citizens, who have a vested interest in, and who attempt to in²uence, policy.
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Finally, the decentralized role of the states, and their ability to develop or tailor policies to meetthe needs of their respective citizens, di±erentiates our nation’s system from those of othercountries.These four features, singularly and collectively, in²uence the health care policiesadopted and implemented in the United States.The development of national policies is a complex process that begins with the identi³cation ofan issue or need and then involves the creation of the policy, legislative approval, and, ³nally,implementation. It may become necessary at a later date for legislators to change or modify thepolicy. For major or contentious policies, there may be only a small window for successfulpassage. This was certainly the case with the ACA, the passage of which necessitated alignmentamong the Democratic president, the Democratic majority in Congress, and public concern aboutthe unsustainable growth in health care expenditures and the increasing number of uninsuredcitizens.The ACAis the largest health reform initiative this country has ever attempted. There have beenmany reform e±orts over the past century—some successful, some not. In fact, virtually everypresident since Theodore Roosevelt, who campaigned (unsuccessfully) for a third term in 1912 ona platform calling for universal health insurance (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009), hasattempted some sort of health reform. The di´culty in passing comprehensive health reforminitiatives tends to reside in the gap between the stated preferences of the population and itswillingness to take an active (i.e., ³nancial) role in supporting the initiatives.According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (2009), opinion polls dating back severaldecades typically re²ect strong support for guaranteed access to care, comprehensive insurancefor all citizens, and a larger role for the government in health ³nancing. This support quicklydiminishes, however, when people are expected to contribute to the costs of these initiatives.The passage and implementation of the ACA will dramatically change the dynamics of the UShealth care system. One of the more immediate results is the provision of health insurance tomillions of Americans who were previously uninsured.This will have second- and third-ordere±ects on other aspects of the health care system, such as the availability of primary careproviders, and will likely require the modi³cation of existing policies or the development of newones.The readings and activities of this unit will provide more detail on the principal features of UShealth policy and the history of health care reform e±orts in the United States. We will exploresome of the major components of the ACA. We will revisit this act in week 8, when we discuss thefuture of the US health care system.ReferencesBodenheimer, T., & Pham, H. H. (2010). Primary care: Current problems and proposedsolutions.Health Afairs, 29(5), 799–805.Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. (2009). National health insurance—A brief history of reform e±ortsin the U.S. Retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://www.k±.org/healthreform/7871.cfmKaiser Permanente International. (2011).Summary oF health care systems in the United States.Retrieved December 16, 2013, from http://xnet.kp.org/kpinternational/docs/Summary%20of%20US%20Health%20Care%20System%20Jan%202011.pdfShi, L., & Singh, D. A. (2012).Delivering health care in America: A systems approach. Burlington, MA:Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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