Topic to Policy

Health Care Topic to Health Care Policy

Todd Wallace

HCS 455 Health Care Policy

May 23, 2011
Anne Koepsell

Health Care Topic to Health Care Policy

Health care topics are one of the most debated areas that the government finds itself discussing.   The health care topics have the potential to affect all the people of the United States.   When a topic becomes a policy on the federal level, it is implemented in every state.   It is important to understand the process taken to create a policy from a topic because the policy will at some point affect all health care consumers and providers.   Three main stages exist in the process to transform a topic into a policy.   Those stages are the formulation stage, the legislative stage, and the implementation stage.   Coupled with the implementation stage is an evaluation of all the stages to determine effectiveness and gather information for use in future public health care policy making.
Topic Selection
      All health care policy begins with the selection of a topic that seems to need addressed by permanent policy implementation.   Many popular topics discussed include controlling the costs of health care, providing health care to all people, public health, research, and Medicare and Medicaid programs.   The topic selected for policy formation is determined by the popular public opinion on what is the most important area to regulate.   Most often it is to fight the increasing costs of health care.
      Formulation Stage
      In the formulation stage of policy making it is important to make sure that the topic selected is indeed an issue that requires government input to be solved.   The policy makers determine the problem that needs a written policy to remedy, through many resources.   In this case the problem that needs to be addressed is costs and spending in health care.   During this stage of the process, information should be gathered to support the need for a health care topic to be made into a policy.   The...