Examination of the Stakeholders in Health Policymaking

Examination of the Stakeholders in Health Policymaking
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Examination of the Stakeholders in Health Policymaking
The process of health policymaking is essential in bringing the much-needed reforms in the U.S. healthcare sector. It is a rigorous process that requires collaboration among different stakeholders who must work together to address any issues that may arise in the various stages of policy-making.
The first phase of policymaking is referred to as the issue identification and agenda building phase (Cairney & Oliver, 2017). During this phase, a problem within the healthcare sector is identified and brought to the attention of the relevant authorities. For instance, the 21st-century cures act was developed and implemented, in part, to assist states in fighting the opioid epidemic in the country (Gabay, 2017). The opioid epidemic attracted the government’s attention after a rise in the number of overdose and subsequent deaths due to opioid addiction. In the same way, various stakeholders must identify a problem and then the issue is turned into an agenda that can be addressed by policymakers. Many issues can be identified, but only a few of them become agendas. For an issue to become an agenda for policymakers there must be enough complaints from the public as well as lobby groups. The key stakeholders in this phase include patients, healthcare providers and lobbyists (Malekinejad, Horvath, Snyder, & Brindis, 2018). Patients can be members of the public who have been affected by the issue either directly or indirectly. As stakeholders in this phase, patients and the public, in general, want access to quality and affordable care, and as such, they have a role to play in ensuring they receive the kind of care they want. They do so by providing their healthcare providers with information concerning the issue. Healthcare providers, lobbyists and other advocates of health, such as community and national-level organizations, then use this information to push the issue into a policymaker agenda. As revealed by Malekinejad et al. (2018), without these healthcare providers and advocates, the voices of the underserved communities, such as substance users, may never receive the attention of the policymakers. The greatest challenge that stakeholders face during this phase is ensuring that the identified problem becomes an agenda for policymakers.
Once a problem has been identified and converted into a policymaker agenda, policymakers then move into the second phase. This phase is referred to as the policy formulation and adoption stage (Cairney & Oliver, 2017). This phase involves coming up with potential solutions to the identified problem. For this phase to be successful, policymakers must analyze the information at their disposal. Policy formulation involves negotiation between the involved stakeholders who have to eventually ...