Cohesive Response

Provide an example of two policies that address similar needs, passed at two levels of government (i.e., federal, state, or local).

This article addresses the two policies that address the financing of health care in the US at the federal government. These two policies include the Health Care Financing (HCF) policy and Congregational Budget Office (CBO) which address the health care financial needs for individuals. 

What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of this duplication? How does this example reflect the implications of federalism? Provide support from the literature for your position.

      The duplication enables the other health care financial institutions to lower their charges for the premiums paid by the insured persons since it exerts pressure on them to lower the charges. It is beneficial to have multiple health insurance policies since if a certain policy rejects a claim, an individual or a family does not lose a lot of money and also gets covered by the other instead of drawing medical money from the pockets (Almgren, 2013).  Some other insurance plans only cover limited health risks and this poses a worry to the covered individuals in case one suffers from an uncovered disease, he or she will be required to pay for the medication.  

        However, the duplication may have some drawbacks which include, despite the availability of the health care, the health status of the whole population depends on other many factors. The number of those uninsured and lack of the continuity due to the migration of the insured persons poses a disadvantage.  Most of the health care providers will end up losing a lot of money since many people will opt for the public options. This may slowly kill the health insurance policies due to the high competition and a loss of clients to the public one. Some other policies may pay a low amount of money to the hospitals for medication which may lower the profit margins for them. 

To what degree should the federal government get involved in health care policy making? Provide concrete examples to support your position.

      The federal government should work towards the protection and advancement of the citizens’ interests which include making of the health care policies. This is necessary so as to preserve and supplement the gaps left by the health care market and promote fairness and efficiency in providing health care to the citizens. The federal government owns the key role in modeling the health care policies so as to ensure that the policies made are beneficial and fair to everyone in the society without discrimination (Schmidt et al, 2017). The government has a unique position in a country and hence should exercise it and take a full advantage of that position by regulating the policies regarding health care which focus on improving the quality of the health care.  It should emphasize on measuring the quality of the care offered by the clinicians and trail the purchasing strategies which encourage the adoption of the policies with the best practices by providing the health care finances and releasing the public purview proportional eminence data. It should also reward those who provide high-quality levels of health practices so as to encourage implementation of the best policies in the health care sector. 

        The health care delivery systems which are operated by the public programs should act as the test center for the enhancement of the modern health care delivery systems and emphasize on the propagation of the findings and where necessary create the public-domain products (Schmidt et al, 2017).  For example, some clinics may be operated by untrained practitioners who provide poor and unsafe health care. This necessitates the coming in of the federal government to regulate the health care policies and establish the minimum standards for the provision of health care such that the practitioners meet the required standards. This will ensure that the beneficiaries are protected from compromised, ineffectual and ineffectively trained clinicians and organizations that provide poor quality services. However, the policies should be in a way that they do not convey complicating intentions and create unnecessary burdens hence neglecting the essential quality elements. 

References

Almgren, G. R. (2013). Health care politics, policy, and services: A social justice analysis. Press

Schmidt, S. W., Shelley, M. C., & Bardes, B. A. (2017). American government and politics 

today. Press.