Position Paper on Health Policy
Introduction
Policies are an essential aspect of healthcare as they provide incentives that get used in the achievement of quality and safety of patients. Nurse advocates play a major role in the creation of such policies. With the recent outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed many lives across the world, it became essential for a policy to get established to help curb and prevent the further spread of the condition. Thus, the H.R. 6201: Families First Coronavirus Response Act (United States Congress, 2020) got implemented to aid in the mitigation of the coronavirus effects. As provided under this specific policy, the government provides funding for stamps of food, free testing of the coronavirus, and allowing workers that are affected to have a leave of 14 days that are paid. With the impacts of the pandemic constantly rising, the policy allows the patients to solve their issues of healthcare more efficiently. The policy gets funded annually by the national treasury making access to testing and treatment by the citizens less costly, and any funding that is unexpected gets provided for.
Evidence in support of the policy
The implementation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act has had a significant impact on the quality of care and the safety of patients. The policy provides that employers have to allow the employees a sick leave that is paid, of 80 hours for those that are employed on a full-time basis, and pro-rat rules get applied for the employees that work part-time (NM, 2020). My support for this policy is based on this provision in that it gives the employees a higher chance of recovery and presents the further spread of the infections at the place of work. If the employees work under sick conditions, the likelihood of their condition worsening is high as they will be working at a time when they need treatment and rest the most. This policy, therefore, contributes significantly to the enhancement of outcomes of healthcare as the safety of patients gets improved when they are allowed time off from employment to take care of their health care needs when they feel unwell (Burke et al. 2020). This policy is especially applicable in situations where the employees highly interact with patients that have the coronavirus disease. When employees get diagnosed and treated, they need time off to recover so that they can better carry out their duties. For instance, the case of employees working in healthcare, providing care for the patients that have been diagnosed with the virus.
Another major contribution the policy makes to the outcomes of health is by reducing the costs of access to testing and medical care for the patients that have contacted the virus. Apart from providing coverage or payment for testing, the policy provides services and items that are associated with the testing like office visits and supplies. The policy ensures that this gets done without any sharing of costs for those that are not insured, those that are covered under Medicare including traditional Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, Veterans health care, TRICARE, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), HIS and Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program (Keith, 2020). The policy considers the economic aspects and the outcomes brought about by the pandemic, making healthcare more affordable making and accessible to all individuals. The outcomes of health get improved by the policy in that it reduces the costs of health care among the patients that are affected making it easy for their relations with their health care providers to be improved, significantly enhancing the outcomes of health.
Opposing opinion to the policy
Despite the benefits the policy has on the enhancement of outcomes of health in managing the coronavirus pandemic, there have been some significant opposing opinions to the idea that it is effective in providing better outcomes of health care. The opposing opinion is based on how effective the policy is in achieving care quality and safety of patients. The opposition provides that the policy has restrictions that make it beneficial to only a particular portion of people in the country. For effectiveness to get achieved and maximum outcomes of health achieved, the restrictions would need to get lifted to be able to accommodate as many patients as possible. One of the policy’s provisions states that employers that have less than 500 employees should allow their employees to take emergency sick leave and those that have employees that are fewer than 50 are exempted from allowing the employees to take sick leave that is paid (United States Congress, 2020). This provision does not make sense because whether there are few or many employees, the risk of contracting the virus still exists, and sick leave should be allowed to avoid the spread of the disease.
Another explanation to this opposing opinion is that since the coronavirus has no cure yet, and the fact that there are restrictions to it makes the implementation of the policy less effective in attempting to enhance the outcomes of health. The government needs to provide more funding to implement the policy to ensure that even the employees in small businesses also get covered by the policy. There is a high percentage of American s that work in businesses that are small, yet the restriction in the policy only provides for coverage for those people that work in companies that have a high number of employees, which is a small percentage of employees. This makes it pointless that the policy is supposed to meet the healthcare needs of the population during this time of the pandemic and the fact that it only serves a small portion of the population beats the purpose it is meant to serve, making its implementation ineffective. I agree with the opinion that the policy is ineffective and that changes should be made to it in terms of finding for it to be able to accommodate the businesses that are small too.
The final position on the policy
The final position I hold on the policy based on the assessment of its effectiveness in achieving patient safety and quality care is to support its application across the world in handling the cases of the increase in the coronavirus infections. When this policy gets implemented, there may be a significant reduction in the spread of the diseases as compared to failing to implement it. Therefore, despite the fact that the policy provisions have been established to serve only a small population and that amendments to its provisions are necessary, it is still better to implement it than not for countries that bare seeking to avoid further spread of the pandemic. My position in support of this policy is that changes should be made to the policy to be able to accommodate every citizen whether in small or large businesses to enhance its effectiveness in enhancing the outcomes of health in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
I agree with Wagner & Solomon (2020) in their statement concerning the contribution of the policy I helping states deal with the COVID-19 economic and public health crisis impacts. This is one of the reasons I advocate for the implementation of the policy as the government is able to provide funding to states to help deal with the testing and treatment of patients that are not insured and those from companies that have a high number of employees, significantly improving the health outcomes. Implementation of this policy has a significant benefit to employers too, which is why I support it. In instances where one employee gets sick, and the employer denies them sick leave to be able to take care of their health care needs, they may end up spreading the infection caused by the virus to the other employees, causing them to incur further costs as the performance of the employees will get reduced as more of them will have to be away from work, reducing the productivity of the business. If a business follows the provisions of the policy, the employer will be able to avoid incurring extra costs as he will avoid exposure of the other employees to the factors of risk that may lead them into contracting the virus.
Am in support of the implementation of the policy based on the fact that despite its effectiveness having been widely criticized, it enhances access to health care because of the free testing that it provides for (Galvani et al., 2020). With the free access to testing equipment and services, the citizens are able to know their status of health and seek medication. Most of the people that are uninsured are covered, and for this reason, they are able to access services associated with the care needed to manage the condition. The policy makes care accessible to the low-income earners that cannot afford medical insurance for the testing and medication to treat the coronavirus disease. Adherence to the policy has so far significantly contributed to the decrease in the spread of the virus.
Conclusion
Failure to allow employees to take sick leave lays a major role in increasing the spread of communicable diseases. The employers end up incurring more costs if the infection further spreads to the other employees in the organization and for this reason, the H.R. 6201: Families First Coronavirus Response Act has had a significant influence in aiding the mitigation of the coronavirus effects. Nurse advocates, therefore, play a major role in promoting the implementation of the policy by advocating for the issues of patients that improve the accessibility to care that is quality by ensuring that the policies that get established are cost-effective. The discussion above, therefore presents a major issue with the policy and to enhance its effectiveness, the government should increase the funding for the implementation of the policy. With no vaccine available yet to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, the restrictions should be amended to include the employees that work in small businesses to enhance outcomes of health.
References
Burke, L., Burton, D. R., Fishpaw, M., Greszler, R., Michel, A., Michel, N., … & Winfree, P. (2020). The Senate’s Coronavirus Bill: Bailouts, Missed Opportunities, and Positive Reforms. Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, (3479), 2020-03. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/BG3479_0.pdf
Galvani, A. P., Parpia, A. S., Pandey, A., Zimmer, C., Kahn, J. G., & Fitzpatrick, M. C. (2020). The imperative for universal healthcare to curtail the COVID-19 outbreak in the USA. Clinical medicine. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30124-3/fulltext
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr6201/summary
Keith, K. (2020). Senate Passes COVID-19 Package# 3: The Coverage Provisions. Health Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200326.765600/full
N.M., L. (2020). Text–HR 6201–116th Congress (2019-2020): Families First Coronavirus
Response Act (NM, 2020).
United States Congress, (2020). H.R. 6201: Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Wagner, J., & Solomon, J. (2020). Medicaid Coverage Protections in Families First Act: What They Require and How to Implement Them. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/resrep24763.pdf