Stakeholder and health policy

Stakeholder and health policy

1) Stakeholders are involved in all different areas and fields. They play a very important role in forming policies because they are affected the most by any reforms that are done (in this case, in the healthcare field). The stakeholder groups involved in the formulation of health policy include providers, the government and insurance companies. Providers and the government are two of the most important stakeholder groups in the formulation of health policy. The government is important because they have direct contact with the decision makers. The providers are important because they are hands on in experiencing the good and bad effects of the policy reform. Stakeholders usually play an influential part and have an influential role in the society. This can contribute to how much attention a policy may receive. The main role of stakeholders is communication, they communicate directly with the decision makers, the people affected by the policy and the society. Different methods of communication are used by stakeholders to effectively convey the messages. The stakeholders have the power to decide whether they support or reject decisions that have been made about a health policy. Once a health policy is introduced, stakeholders ask the public for their opinions, they then gather this information and the feedback they receive.

2) The efforts of the government and the providers are distributed to the insurance companies as well as other stakeholders. Relevant information about the efforts of the government and providers is made available to the other stakeholders. All stakeholders will then come together and share their opinions. This can be done in three ways:

1) face to face

2) through letters and reports

3) electronically

The interaction between stakeholders will determine how the development of the process will go. As I mentioned above, the stakeholders will either support or oppose the policy and this information will then be collected and explained to the decision makers.

3) There were many of stakeholders involved in the formulation of the Affordable Care Act, these stakeholders include: “federal and state governments, health insurers and other commercial groups related to the policy, political parties and leaders, National Republican Congressional Committee, the Supreme Court, and the general public” (Irigoyen, 2017). During this process many stakeholders were with the idea of universal healthcare coverage but there were also many stakeholders that were against the idea of universal healthcare coverage. The democrats supported the ACA whereas the republicans opposed the idea of the ACA. The republicans refused to cooperate with the democrats to successfully pass this bill and attempted to get it repealed on multiple occasions. Despite this effort from the republicans the affordable care act was passed and is still ongoing today. The administrators of the ACA helped shape it by receiving stronger support of the policy by giving congress more detailed information about the structure of the ACA and the goals (Irigoyen, 2017). The administrators also helped shape the ACA by getting support from other stakeholders including insurers, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and other providers” (Irigoyen, 2017). Lastly, the government shaped the ACA by allowing the House and the Senate to work through their disagreements and concerns pertaining to the ACA before turning it into a bill.