Health Policy Making Process: Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay

Health Policy Making Process
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Health Policymaking Process
The policymaking process brings on board several actors, both from the public and private sectors, who play a significant role in ensuring the procedure succeeds. In the health sector, several state and non-state actors, including the relevant stakeholders, are involved with each playing a pivotal role. This paper assesses the policymaking at the federal, state, and local levels and highlights their similarities and differences. It will also elaborate on the private sector's role and identify the various stakeholders' health policymaking processes.
Policymaking at the Federal, State, and Local Levels
Policies are the actions, plans, activities, or programs delivered by the government to its citizen to improve service delivery. They occur at different levels and times, depending on the type of service or activity to be delivered. Health policy focuses on providing health care services to citizens and is developed either at the federal, state, or local government levels (Shi, 2014). The policymaking steps include the agenda-setting, policy formulation and adoption, policy implementation, policy evaluation, and sometimes termination of a policy. Agenda setting identifies a problem or a need within the community or the society that requires a solution. After problem identification, the different government levels take the initiative of coming up with a plan or approach to solving the problem. At this level, the relevant stakeholders come in to give in their inputs, opinions, and possible solutions to the problem. These include the private sector, the affected community members, and the relevant government departments. After finding a possible solution, it is adopted and implemented to address the community's particular challenge.
Every policy must be evaluated to ascertain whether it addresses the current solution or needs modification to address the problem effectively. Some regularities might not be sufficient and hence might be terminated, especially when the cost-benefit analysis report shores that more is lost with the policy than what is gained. The health policy formulation process and steps are similar at all the different government levels, be it federal, state, or local. There will always be stakeholders' involvement, public participation, and private sector involvement to arrive at an informed policy that meets the people's needs (Shi, 2014). Different government levels are tasked with the formulation of various approaches as regards to the healthcare system. There are federally owned and managed health facilities, and there are state-owned and managed healthcare facilities. It is under these that the different levels of governments formulate the relevant policies.
Role of the Private Sector in Policymaking
The policymaking process is not a government only affair but must involve non-state actors and relevant stakeholders. Among these stakeholders are the private sector, which comprises several stakeholders, including the private health care service providers, the insurance service providers, the pharmaceutical companies, and non-governmental organizations adv...