Trends in Health Policy (Essay Sample)

Trends in Healthy Policy: Healthy Care Policy
Name
Institution
Trends in Health Policy: Health Care Reform
Healthcare policies refer to a collection of strategic plans, decisions, and actions, carefully designed, analyzed and tailor made to meet health care objectives in a given society or nation. The policies define priorities and give reason to their relevance. Moreover, they provide a projection of providing precise measures of dealing with anticipated health concerns. Health care reform is a policy used to refer to critical and significant changes in health policies. The changes might involve the creation of more policies that enhance ease of access to medical facilities and services. Reforms tend to address the following issues among many; increase the general population covered by insurance, increase health care providers, facilitate ease of access to medical specialists and lower cost of health care. This paper shall cover on theoretical matters in health policy, legal aspects in both health policies and reforms, ethical issues, and health policy implications for governments’ and citizens.
Theoretical issues in health policy arise since there exists a gap between what was is planned and what is executed on the ground. Political interferences, especially in developing nations, are one of the leading causes of the differences. However, three model approaches have been prepared in evaluating health policy implementation; top-down theory, bottom-up theory, and principal-agent theory. In top-down theory, policies are formulated by senior persons in the society, usually the political class and passed down to subordinates for implementation. Certain conditions must exist for the theory to work; one major condition is execution of policies as formulated. However, the main challenge associated with the theory is that policies are never implemented as formulated. The bottom-down approach incorporates subordinates in policy making and implementation. In this theory, subordinates opinions are considered in reshaping of policies and implementing. The principal-agent theory is more structured since it considers a relationship between decision-makers and those who implement the policies, (Buse, 2005). However, implementing policies involves three major steps; interpreting policies, establishing administrative units necessary to implement a strategic health policy and actual executive of service.
Legal aspects must be considered in formulation of health policies, and health care reforms must. It is pieces of legislation that regulate the frequency of health policy formulation, the target group of the policies and supervision policy implementation. It is the law that determines the budget allocation for policy development or health care reforms. Persons involved in implementing the policies or changes must act within the legal framework established by the state. Pieces of legislation play a pivotal role in ensuring that health policies and health care reforms are sustainable and efficient. They create a framework that focuses on accountability, integrity, and upholding of professionalism. Legal aspects bring about equity in implementing the policies and health care; it ensures that marginalized and less privileged persons get medical services. Legal aspects regulate the scope of research, innovation, renovation, and development of health care reforms and policy formulation, (Banks, 2001).
Legal concerns are neglected in a majority of health policy formulation and health care reforms. Legal aspects affect patients, policy formulators, health care reformists, health personnel and boost confidence levels in the society. Patients require privacy in their treatment; this is a legitimate concern that is of pivotal importance in health care. Exchange of patient health information among different health care providers, payments structures for patients, vendors, and health workers in institutions, reimbursement issues, and data portability require some form of legal or regulatory framework. The importance of proper legal framework is also necessary for innovation, policy interpretation, implementation, clearance, and approval of policies, post-implementation activities, and commercialization of health policies or health care.
Ethics is not a strange term in the health profession, a commitment to have a client’s needs first, is one ethical principle. Some of the moral principles are contained in different cultures, oath of office, and such other documents contain ethics that guide health professionals. Ethical studies are incorporated into the curriculum studies of doctors and health workers. All practitioners in the medical health industry have a rich background in ethics when leaving school. However, the field of public health has received little attention in ethics; it is in the recent past that the area has received recognition in terms of formulating proper guidelines on standards. This is attributed to the fact that public health is concerned with issues beyond health care. It focuses on the economic and cultural practices of a given society; particular societies hold practices that inhibit the development of health policies. Such societies must be handled with care since they must be educated on the importance of health care before attending to them.
Challenging questions have been raised due to the incorporation of ethical analysis to public health. For example, there is the question of what value is ethical analysis to public health? Are pieces of legislation subject to ethical scrutiny? Who decides on what values to protect, the order in which they should be prioritized in case of a dispute? How does ethical analysis provide a common ground between universal principles and values accepted by particular societies? These questions arise one ultimate question, what is the final benefit of incorporating ethics in health care reforms policies? Though there exists a series of challenges, ethics play a cooling ground for health workers and patients. It may seem to add little value to public health on the face value, but it is of great importance to all stakeholders, Morrow, (1995).
Health policy and health care reforms implementation have a series of impacts to a government and society. Governments spend resources in public health; ranging from hiring of health expatriates who research on health issues, formulate proper policies and reform agendas and hiring workers who implement the policies. Moreover, more resources are spent on purchasing vehicles used by health wo...