N520 Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Care Module 2 Discussion

Please respond to ONE of the following prompts.

Do you agree that individual states should be able to place reasonable restrictions or waiting periods for abortions? Who should determine what is reasonable?

Examine this statement: “The inherent risk is that society’s faith in doctors as healers would become subverted if doctors participate in physician-assisted suicide.”

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Significant transformations in healthcare have been witnessed in the US over the past one decade. The transformations mainly target at improving the health and wellbeing of the America citizens irrespective of their backgrounds. The reforms aim to achieve this by increasing the populations covered by different health insurance schemes, which will improve access and utilization of healthcare services by the diverse populations (Jones, 2017). Despite these benefits, significant challenges surround the transformations. For instance, concerns have been raised on whether the reforms will be of importance in the long-term. Therefore, this paper expounds on these issues based on the interview I conducted with the director of health in our state.

Summary and Analysis of the Interview

The interview was conducted on 5 January 2020 at the director’s office. In my view, the interview was a success since the director explored a wide range of issues on healthcare reforms. The director was keen on ensuring that all the questions asked were tactfully addressed. The main areas of focus in the interview included achievements of healthcare reforms, opportunities for healthcare institutions, challenges with the reforms and ways of addressing them. According to the director, significant successes have been reported with the adoption of healthcare reforms in the US. The success can be seen in the percentage of American citizens who have access to their needed care in the modern world. As reported by her, the healthcare reforms have not only increased healthcare access for the ethnic minorities but also individuals from non-minority communities that are unemployed. The consequences of these improvements are a significant rise in the utilization of healthcare services and healthier populations.

The director also reported that the adoption of healthcare reforms has led to a significant improvement in the quality of care offered to the American citizens. Accordingly, it has shifted the payment system for healthcare services where hospitals that meet the goals of value-based purchasing system receive higher numeration than those that does not. There has also a significant improvement in the protection of data of the patients since institutions have to abide by regulations guiding its use. Health organizations have also embraced new technologies that have enhanced the safety, efficiency, and quality of care (Thompson, 2015). Therefore, she was optimistic that the achievements reported with the adoption of healthcare reforms are expected to transform the healthcare system of the US in the future.

Moreover, the director was keen to note that there exist opportunities that can be explored to enhance the efficiency of the healthcare reforms. She expressed the increased need for healthcare stakeholders to focus on upholding the principle of doing no harm to others. In this case, she expressed that while most people have criticized the use of single-payer system to be unsustainable; it should not be disbanded but be fixed. The imperfections in the Affordable Care Act need to be fixed with the aim of increasing insurance coverage to the Americans who are not insured. The director gave four ways in which this can be achieved. Firstly, the legislators should consider expanding the eligibility for tax credit offsets. This will raise the number of poor individuals who can afford the premiums. Secondly, there is a need for the states to provide citizens with enhanced tax credit offsets. This will specifically benefit the young adults with low income (Shaw, 2017). Lastly, the Medicaid eligibility should be expanded to a level that ensures that a majority of the poor can afford the cost of premiums in the state insurance cover. Through these interventions, the goals of healthcare reforms can be achieved.

The director expressed concerns that despite the success in healthcare reforms, the implementation process has experienced significant challenges. Firstly, there has been considerable resistance from healthcare institutions in the implementation of some provisions. Successful implementation of the healthcare reforms demands the restructuring of most processes of health care organizations. The restructuring require the use of financial resources to acquire new technologies and train staffs on its use (Shaw, 2017). As a result, the adoption process must consider the needs and concerns of healthcare institutions, hence, the challenge.

In addition, the director also expressed that the implementation process could be affected adversely by the rising costs of healthcare in the US. According to evidence, the cost of healthcare in the US is higher than any other developed state in Europe and the rest of the world. The high cost is expected to rise further with the adoption of the reforms. The rise is attributed to a decline in the population covered by the employers in the state (Jones, 2017). The consequence of such change will be an increase in consumer spending on healthcare, hence, the rise in healthcare cost and unaffordability of care to a majority of the citizens.

The last part of the interview was on the ways in which the above challenges can be addressed. According to the director, there is a need for the expansion of federal coverage to solve the cost-related issues affecting the reforms. The coverage should be nationwide with states having complete responsibility for the vulnerable in the society. The second recommendation is retaining the Medicaid expansion for individuals with income level below 138% of the poverty levels to increase affordability and coverage (Thompson, 2015). Lastly, coverage should be comprehensive to cover all the healthcare needs of the diverse populations.

Conclusion

In summary, the interview revealed that the adoption of healthcare reforms in the US have achieved significant milestones in promoting the health of the American citizens. There has been an increase in healthcare access, affordability, and utilization among the population. Despite these achievements, the adoption process has faced challenges related to financial implications it has on health care organizations. Therefore, it is important that a focus be placed on ensuring that the challenges are addressed to realize the full benefits of the reforms.

References

Jones, D. K. (2017). Exchange politics: Opposing Obamacare in battleground states. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Shaw, G. M. (2017). The dysfunctional politics of the Affordable Care Act. Santa Barbara, CA: California Praeger.

Thompson, T. (2015). The Affordable Care Act. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.

Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.

One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.

I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.

In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.

Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).

Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).

Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.

I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.

As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.

It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.

Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.

Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?

Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.

Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.

If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.

I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.

As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:

Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.

Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.