Health Care Reform: The Affordable Care Act and Beyond - Essay Sample

Introduction

Health care policy is defined as the plan, decision, and actions taken to obtain certain health care objectives within society. For instance, President Barack Obama assent the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law in 2010, which was intended to increase the insurance coverage to every American and to avert the burden of rapidly increasing healthcare costs and expenditures (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). The supporters of the law suggested that the reform would significantly reduce the cost of care for Americans and accelerate access to health care, which would ultimately benefit every individual in the United States. Also, public health is among the sophisticated sectors that the government may opt to invest heavily in.

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Understandably, early prevention and control are believed to prevent costly healthcare issues that may arise later. Therefore, the United States of America usually recognizes the government’s role in the protection of people’s health (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). It is because public health helps in promoting and improving the well-being of the entire population. The paper seeks to analyze the state and federal regulatory climate surrounding Health People 2020 initiative in the United States.

Healthy People Initiative

Healthy People initiative is a national health care policy designed to improve public health and the well-being of the people. Notably, after every ten years, the policy goals and measurable objectives are reviewed, updated, and applied by the federal government, communities, states, and other private and public organizations to monitor their progress and achievement of targets and prevent and mitigating possible health problems (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). More imperatively, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has played a fundamental role in taking the lead for ensuring safe food and nutrition through several national objectives for the program. According to Healthy People 2020 (HP2020), setting up the objectives in public health and offering a scientific benchmark for monitoring and evaluating the progress can stimulate and focus on a specific action (Hansen et al., 2018).

As the fourth generation of the program, healthy people are a technique for strategic management used by states, federal government, communities, and organizations. It acts as the model utilized to measure the progress of health issues at the local and state levels and a foundation for controlling healthcare activities across different sectors in the country (Henley et al., 2020). The policy priorities reflect an input from individuals, organizations, and public health experts, which focuses on topic areas including access to health care services, environmental quality, maternal and child health, mental health, oral health, and substance abuse, among other several health issues.

The Role of State and Federal Government

The federal government performs a fundamental role in shaping the public health system in the United States. In the move to achieve the objectives set by the Healthy People Initiative, the federal government surveys the health need and health status of the population, pass laws and regulations that guide the health care system, set standards and policies, and support healthcare research and biomedical in the country (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). Additionally, it also helps in financing and delivering individual healthcare services and providing resources and technical assistance to the local and state healthcare system. More significantly, the federal government offers protection against international healthcare threats, as it supports the worldwide effort towards realizing global healthcare. Therefore, the federal government takes center stage to ensure that every individual access health in the United States, which is among the main objectives of the policy.

The federal government undertakes such roles through delegated powers, including the power to tax the general public and spend on their welfare and the power to regulate interstate commerce. The main functions include regulating different activities like labeling hazardous substances under the power of regulating interstate commerce (Henley et al., 2020). The ideal of financing individual healthcare services through Medicare and Medicaid programs as well as the cleanup of hazardous substances are under the power of the government to tax its people and to spend towards the general welfare of the population, which is also based among the 42 topics of the Healthy People program (Berkowitz et al., 2018).

Also, the Health and Human Services (HHS) promotes the health and the welfare of the people by providing efficient and effective health care and human services and enhancing sustained advances based on public health, social services, and medicine (Berkowitz et al., 2018). HHS collaborates with the federal government to identify and adopt the best practices on the Healthy People 2020 initiative’s performance and management (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). It also works closely with the private organizations and local government in ensuring that the set objectives are achieved.

Conclusion

It is worth noting that Healthy People 2020 is a program that is set to transform the healthcare system in the United States and work towards the general welfare of the people. The federal government has been an embodiment, with its great effort to ensure that the set objectives are achieved, and the general public can enjoy a transformed health system. The federal government has set the standards, policies, and laws used in guiding the activities underpinning the initiative. Different programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, are aligned towards achieving the objectives of Healthy People 2020. For the success of the program, healthcare organizations, states, and local governments should align their activities and objectives with the set policies.

References

Berkowitz, S. A., Terranova, J., Hill, C., Ajayi, T., Linsky, T., Tishler, L. W., & DeWalt, D. A. (2018). Meal delivery programs reduce the use of costly health care in dually eligible Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. Health Affairs, 37(4), 535-542. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0999

Hansen, A. R., Akomolafe, T. O., McGalliard, Z., Belle-Isle, L., & Zhang, J. (2018). Striving to meet healthy people 2020 objectives: trend analysis of maternal smoking. Public Health Reports, 133(6), 644-649. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0033354918793120

Henley, S. J., Thomas, C. C., Lewis, D. R., Ward, E. M., Islami, F., Wu, M., ... & Kohler, B. A. (2020). Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, part II: Progress toward Healthy People 2020 objectives for 4 common cancers. Cancer, 126(10), 2250-2266. https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cncr.32802

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2016). History and development of Healthy People 2020. https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/History-and-Development-of-Healthy-People