25 Jul Positive Feedback Essay

please give positive feedback by expanding on their explanation and providing an example that supports their explanation or respectfully challenging their explanation and providing an example.

“I believe that the term “cost-benefit” has a different meaning for legislators than it does for everyday people. As a country with democracy, it is disheartening to know that sometimes our leader’s values and morals do not align with our own. According to Milstead and Short (2019), “policymakers are not necessarily focused on how real people will be affected by changes to Obamacare or Medicare and Medicaid but rather on how the changes will affect their own re-election chances” (p. 40). These legislators and policymakers do not take into account the effect of their actions on the communities they serve. Some of the lawmakers may have not even ever stepped foot in a hospital, thus they may be unaware of the challenges that the community and population face as well as the concerns of the healthcare personnel providing care (Walden University, 2018d). In order for there to be common ground between lawmakers and healthcare personnel, I believe lawmakers need to develop a better understanding of how their decisions affect communities on a larger scale and can even have a “snowball effect”.

Former Baltimore City Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson describes the snowball effect as a similar term known as the “broken window effect”. He discusses how much of an impact the social determinants of health have on a community. Access to healthcare, decent education, safe housing, and livable wage-paying jobs are four of the social determinants of health that he elaborated on in the video. In a Baltimore community lacking these elements, there were increased rates of crime (i.e. broken windows) and increased chronic diseases related to lack of healthcare (Walden University, 2018c). This shows how truly important access to care is and how significant of a role social determinants play in a community. These are the areas in the U.S. that need more powerful people to advocate for them and provoke positive change via the IOM’s paradigm including needs assessments, policy development, and finally evaluation. Another important part would be that if proven effective, these policies and laws need to actually be enforced, such as the immunizations for children in schools (Walden University, 2018c).

When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, many Americans rejoiced in the fact that healthcare became more accessible. It became an understanding that healthcare should be a right and not a privilege. With the creation and regulation of new health insurance markets, it became easier to provide more accessible and more equitable care for all (Walden University, 2018b). Before the ACA, there were roughly 50 million uninsured Americans whereas, after the implementation of the ACA, it cut that number in half to about 20-25 million uninsured Americans (Walden University, 2018a). It is imperative to understand how the roles of legislators and health care professionals are intertwined in making policies. Joel Teitelbaum, a professor at The George Washington University describes his role in the National Center for Medical Legal Partnership. This program “aims to embed legal services as part of the health care delivery team” (Walden University, 2018a). He describes the importance of legislators and healthcare providers working together because “there are many social determinants of health that are better addressed by a lawyer than a physician” (Walden University, 2018a). For example, legal teams can create laws to improve housing laws and conditions which in turn benefit community health. Legislators will be able to gain respect and votes from the community when they actually take the time to better the community, therefore it would be a win-win for everyone.

References

Milstead, J. A. & Short, N. M. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2018a). Contemporary Issues in Public Health Policy with Joel Teitelbaum [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2018b). Introduction to Health Policy and Law with Joel Teitelbaum [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.”

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2018c). Peter Beilenson: Population Health [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2018d). Working with Legislators [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.