The Role of Politics in Healthcare Policies

Highlight and present one key player/stakeholder (i.e., federal, state, or local) in political health policy in your state.

The state government is a critical player in Los Angeles's health policy. The state government advances the County’s Department of public health's mission of improving patients' health by providing extraordinary care (Brand LA | Editorial Team, 2021). This is achieved using various health reforms, including Medicaid expansions, adoption of health information technology, and mental healthcare access and coverage expansion. The state government also directs the Los Angeles Department of Health Services (DHS), the largest municipal health system in the nation. This is in addition to other healthcare programs, including My Health LA, which accommodates more than 140,000 beneficiaries, and Housing for Health Program, targeting vulnerable populations, including people with disabilities and chronically ill patients.

Buy this excellently written paper or order a fresh one from acemyhomework.com

Choose two state/local/federal healthcare organizations. Then, compare and contrast their political viability in terms of one/more of their health policy(is).

I will compare Food and Drug Association (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The federal government mandates both organizations to enhance the health, safety, and overall well-being of the American Community. This corresponds to the mission of the FDA of protecting the public from probable health and safety threats by ensuring that all products consumed by the public, including medications, are in compliance with public health and safety policy (“FDA. (n.d.).”). Both organizations also prioritize evidence-based research and healthcare innovations in the pursuit of health. Nevertheless, CDC is mostly acknowledged for leading outbreak investigations and publishing public health recommendations for consumption by state and local governments as well as international stakeholders (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). The FDA complements this by setting the regulatory policy, reviewing and approving new drugs and device applications, and allowing them to be used by consumers. Both organizations have profound political stability considering their backing by federal, state, and local governments. Their prioritization of evidence-based research policies further enhances their credibility and authority in health regulation policies.

Apply the “method for analyzing political feasibility” as defined in Chapter 10 of your textbook to define your key player’s viability.

The political feasibility of a health policy is centered on whether the costs and the benefits are concentrated among a few or diffused among many. According to McLaughlin and McLaughlin (2014), the most optically feasible solutions involve the client's politics with concentrated benefits and diffused costs that are spread broadly to all stakeholders.

On the other hand, health policies and solutions involving entrepreneur policies would be regarded as the least politically feasible. In the latter case, the benefits are shared broadly, and hence, there is a lack of impassioned self-interest advocates (McLaughlin & McLaughlin, 2014).

This presents a seller-dominance perspective in the marketplace where the sellers, in this case, policy developers, would have dominance over the consumers.

Certainly, the Los Angeles state government, the key player in the healthcare policy of Los Angeles, is politically feasible. It embraces the client's politics, making it politically attractive. It also embraces majoritarian politics, allowing all stakeholders to collaborate. This includes the federal systems such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs, third-party payers, medical research institutes, providers of medical technology, and public and private healthcare providers.

References Brand LA | Editorial Team. (2021, November 10). Los Angeles government health programs. Brand LA. https://www.brandla.org/post/los-angeles-government-health-programs

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, February 25). Vaccine safety. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/patientsafety/features/vaccine-safety.html FDA. (n.d.). Vaccines, blood & biologics. U.S. Food And Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics McLaughlin, C. P., & McLaughlin, C. D. (2014). Health policy analysis: An interdisciplinary approach (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.