Advocacy and Legislation

Advocacy and Legislation

Introduction

Nurses understand well that the current healthcare system is in a crisis and requires various adjustments. Their encounters, while working in the real world of healthcare, motivates them to take part in advocacy for the purpose of influencing changes in laws, policies, or regulations governing the larger healthcare system. This form of advocacy requires that nurses step beyond their duty in which the majority of them are not ready to work effectively. The success of policy advocacy is dependent on dedicating the time, power, time, energy, will, as well as the political skills necessary to ‘play the game’ within the legislative scene (Abood, 2007). This paper identifies a problem/concern in my state with the capacity for advocacy through legislation.

Problem

Success Nurses are faced with circumstances in their work that call for the evaluation of their past encounters and come up with alternative means that would have been appropriate for a certain situation (Hacker et al., 2015). In Florida, nurses have always taken an active role in advocacy, intending to eliminate some recurring issues they come across during the day-to-day operations. One such issue is the one involving the proposed charge-rule amendment.

For some time, immigrants in the US have exercised the liberty to acquire financial aid from the state, specifically in matters related to healthcare. The presented adjustment by the Trump authority extremely alters this situation. The alteration reduces the possibility of emigrants receiving aid from the public sector and also very hard to get legal citizenship within the country. This directly causes a ripple effect on emigrants exhibiting uncertainty in seeking out medical care due to fear of that being utilized as a diminishing factor to reduce their possibilities of acquiring lawful citizenship.

Idea for Solution

Nurses in Florida have witnessed this irrationality first-hand, bearing in mind Miami remains to be the residence to multiples of immigrants who constitute a huge percentage of the workforce, mainly within the upmarket areas of Miami. I strongly believe that legislation is the way to go for advocacy because it is a regulation that took effect from the national government. It is, therefore, certain that the only solution to revoke or reduce the impacts of this rule would be via official channels, which should file an appeal in the government as well as congress officials. The first key step should involve nurses in establishing an alliance joined by the common goal of supporting the rule to make sure that they present a valid idea in the form of a bill.

After like-minded nursed form an alliance, they may need to provide testimonies in the event of public hearings to reinforce the legislation more. This will offer an exceptional chance for nurses of the same mind as well as other stakeholders to express their sentiments and provide arguments supporting the dismissal of the presented public-charge rule. In this case, the testimony would be offered on the public’s behalf. The public represents thousands of immigrants who are now living in Miami who face the threat of losing out on health care, among other social services (Grinspan, 2019). After a team of qualified officers hears the viewpoint of the nurses, it is my belief that the bill will have an adequate basis for further evaluation and subsequent discussion.

Evidence 1

Research by American Immigrant Council shows that 1 in 5 Florida residents are emigrants with most of them coming from the Caribbean Islands. All of them need affordable health care as they wait to acquire lawful and official citizenship to be taken as responsible and law-abiding citizens. These immigrants contribute to over ¼ of Florida’s workforce. As neighbors, employees, taxpayers, and business owners, emigrants form an important part of the diverse and flourishing Florida communities and play a major role that benefits the state and also the entire country. These people, therefore, need to be treated by humans and be given a chance to enjoy public services that they deserve as law-abiding citizens.

Evidence 2

According to Grinspan (2019), Florida has 2^nd largest population of migrants in the country who are at least 65 years of age. These older immigrants are living in poor conditions than the natives. This is despite the two groups having the same participation rates in the labor force. These people are vulnerable and require good health care. Some of them who are not legal citizens may be hit hard by the public-charge rule. Nurses should do all they can to ensure that it is dismisses or its effects mitigated (Grinspan, 2019).

Stakeholder Support and Opposition

The proposed idea will be supported and opposed by different stakeholders. Like-minded nurses and state officials will support the idea because they understand the detriment the rule will have on hard-working human beings. However, some state officials who support the rule may be opposed to the idea because they support Trump’s administration. Some nurses may oppose it simply because they do not understand what it means to the victims and do not want to dedicate their efforts to something that demanding. This process will, of course, have added costs because it had already been budgeted, and further discussion will require more money to be spent.