The Influence of Politics and Economic Interests on Health Policy

The Influence of Politics and Economic Interests on the Development and Direction of Health Policy
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The Influence of Politics and Economic Interests on the Development and Direction of Health Policy
The environment in which health policy is developed is complex because several factors influence the health policymaking process. This paper analyzes how politics and economic interests affect the development of health policy.
Politics and Health Policy in the United States
There are many political processes involved in health policy and each of these processes has an impact on policy development and overall direction. As posited by Kickbush (2015), health and health policy is a political choice characterized by power struggles among stakeholders with competing interests. This is usually the case because the development of health policy requires collective efforts among members of society and when a large number of people are involved, politics are bound to take the lead. Also, many health policies are driven by political action (Kickbush, 2015). This political action is usually through various political processes such as lobbying, law-making, health activism, and elections. For instance, lobbying involves drawing the attention of Congress to certain problems so that they can be introduced as bills and eventually passed into legislation. The groups lobbying for a specific health policy usually have a particular interest that would be of benefit to the public.
Politics in the US and even other parts of the world are often characterized by partisanship. Partisanship plays a huge role when it comes to health policy. According to Greer, et al. (2017), certain health policies can be adopted or rejected by politicians and representatives from a certain party so that they may please a specific group of voters. This is always in a bid to compete for power and votes to safeguard their election to office. A good example is the history of Medicaid and the various attempts to expand public health benefits. As revealed by Lanford and Quadagno (2015), Democrats and Republicans have always had competing interests when it comes to health benefits expansion, with Democrats supporting expansion while Republicans opposing it. This can explain why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was only voted for by Democrats at a time when the country was being led by a Democratic president. Politicians and policymakers aligned to this party wanted to resonate with voters who are also aligned to the same party. Thus, politics influenced the development and direction of the healthcare policy. It is worth noting that after the 2016 elections, Republicans decided to challenge the ACA, which can also be seen as political action aimed at resonating with Republican voters. In the same way, politics, especially the election of a Republican president, have once again changed the direction of such a paramount policy in the US health sector.
The involvement of the government in health policy is usually interpreted differently by different people. Some are usually against government interventions because they prefer market-driven systems, while others prefer government intervention in regulation or prohibition of certain practices (Hunter, 2016)....