Week 2 Discussion Health Policy

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Week 2 Discussion Health Policy

Introduction

The number of new illnesses is increasing. As a result, the demand for skilled and

knowledgeable healthcare practitioners is also increasing. Such factors make people travel far to

seek the quality services they need and deserve, and some are willing to spend more money on a

doctor, or advanced nurse they believe will give them the best care (Andersson et al., 2022).

Health initiative policies are in place to ensure that health practitioners are at their best when

administering care. The initiatives often affect advanced nurses' clinical practices positively,

potentially leading to high patient satisfaction levels. This paper assesses health policy initiatives

and the eligibility of Medicaid in three different American states.

Health Policy Initiatives and Advanced Nursing

America is committed to ensuring everyone can access quality healthcare services. As a

result, the government is putting intense pressure on healthcare facilities to ensure the continued

availability of knowledgeable and qualified healthcare practitioners who can take on challenges

associated with their roles. In contemporary times, the knowledge and need for optimal

healthcare services have increased. As a result, policy formation bodies like the World Health

Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the American Nursing

Association (ANA) are developing policy initiatives that impact practitioners' clinical activities

(Ferrucci et al., 2019). Such actions seek to promote accountability among practitioners,

including advanced nurses.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a policy that has continued to affect America

significantly since it got passed in March 2010 (Frank & Fry, 2019). One of the initiatives of

ACA is that insurance companies should offer patients affordable health insurance packages. In
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this case, advanced nurses advice patients on efficient insurance packages, especially those with

chronic illnesses who may spend thousands of dollars for treatment. ACA also discourages

discrimination against the disabled when offering healthcare services. Implementing the policy

requires advanced nurses to be patient when caring for the disabled and to recommend affordable

treatment and care options. Such include home physical therapies and monitoring.

Aside from ACA, the consensus model of APRN regulation equally contains health

policy initiatives that impact advanced nurses' clinical practices significantly. One is the

discouragement of substance use disorder in nursing. Research reveals that seeing patients in

pain and suffering continuously can impact advanced nurses' health tremendously (Khatiban et

al., 2018). As a result, some may turn to medications to relax and end up getting addicted to the

medication without noticing. The policy states that nurses who abuse substances are a risk to

patients, themselves, and co-workers. It advises nurses in such situations to seek intervention and

not provide patient care until they recover. Therefore, knowing that one's job may be affected by

substance use would make advanced nurses reconsider their use while working and even after

work.

Medicaid Eligibility Criteria

Medicaid is a joint state and federal program that collaborates with health programs to

offer reliable and effective health coverage to nearly 75 million Americans. It often covers

seniors, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, parents, and children. Usually, federal laws

require states to cover certain groups like people getting Supplemental Security Income (SSI),

children, qualified pregnant women, and low-income families (Gysin et al., 2019). However,

states have open coverage options and can choose the groups to cover.
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For instance, in Kentucky, those eligible for Medicaid include caretakers or parents,

children, pregnant mothers, disabled people, and people over 65. It also covers low-income

adults, thereby expanding its scope of coverage. Louisiana also considers low-income adults as

people who qualify to apply for Medicaid. Other groups eligible for the cover are people over 65

years, the disabled, children, pregnant mothers, and caretakers (Frank & Fry, 2019). Pregnant

women must have a MAGI of 133%, while for Kentucky, it is 195% to qualify for application.

The third state is Michigan, which considers pregnant women, low-income adults, parents,

people above 65 years, those under psychiatric care, and children in foster care as eligible

applicants. The state has a bigger scope coverage than Kentucky and Louisiana and always seeks

to ensure the constant availability of optimal healthcare services.

Implications of The Criteria For People

All health policies have implications, and in this case, the first concerns Michigan. The

state has expanded its eligibility and included children in foster care. Foster parents incur

significant expenses and need all the help they can get to care for their children (Andersson et al.,

2022). Therefore, making the children eligible could potentially reduce healthcare costs for foster

parents, enabling them to divert money to other matters concerning the children's welfare.

Kentucky and Louisiana have almost similar eligibility, meaning that residents who qualify for

Medicaid can enjoy their benefits limitlessly. As such, low-income adults can also have comfort

knowing that they can seek and access affordable healthcare services when needed.

Conclusion

All in all, advanced nurses play vital roles in community health and the healthcare

industry's success. Their roles are delicate and sometimes challenging, but following healthcare

policy regulations provides guidance on the dos and don'ts of clinical practices. In terms of
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healthcare costs, healthcare practitioners should collaborate with communities to teach locals

about Medicaid and encourage those eligible to apply and enjoy its benefits.
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References

Andersson, H., Svensson, A., Frank, C., Rantala, A., Holmberg, M., & Bremer, A. (2022). Ethics

education to support ethical competence learning in healthcare: an integrative systematic

review. BMC Medical Ethics, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-022-00766-z

Ferrucci, L., Gonzalez‐Freire, M., Fabbri, E., Simonsick, E., Tanaka, T., Moore, Z., Salimi, S.,

Sierra, F., & Cabo, R. (2019). Measuring biological aging in humans: A quest. Aging

Cell, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13080

Frank, R. G., & Fry, C. E. (2019). The impact of expanded Medicaid eligibility on access to

naloxone. Addiction, 114(9), 1567–1574. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14634

Gysin, S., Sottas, B., Odermatt, M., & Essig, S. (2019). Advanced practice nurses' and general

practitioners' first experiences with introducing the advanced practice nurse role to Swiss

primary care: a qualitative study. BMC Family Practice, 20(1).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-019-1055-z

Khatiban, M., Falahan, S. N., Amini, R., Farahanchi, A., & Soltanian, A. (2018). Lecture-based

versus problem-based learning in ethics education among nursing students. Nursing

Ethics, 26(6), 1753–1764. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733018767246