Health Policy Making

Health Policy Making

Introduction

The origin of medicine can be traced to as early as the existence of mankind. The outbreaks of different kinds of diseases have made the development of the health sector get a greater attention. Like any other public institution, health care has not been excluded by scrutiny and heavy regulation due to its sensitivity. Since medicine is viewed by different societies to be a social service and not an economic good as would otherwise be, several governments have found themselves with the responsibility of monitoring the health sector. Health policy making is itself a political process because it involves coming up with ideas that face criticism between individuals and groups before policies are made. The policy marketplace micro model deals with the relationship between individuals and groups in the health sector. Nations have however faced the challenge of controlling cost of medicine provision, ensuring accessible health care, ensuring quality, controlling the inclusion of technology in the medical sector as well as measuring validly individual and community health outcomes.

Health policy making is a political process. Policies are only made having gone through an intensive criticism from different individuals and groups. Also, political ethics greatly affect the policy making procedure and cannot be ignored (Mita, Winsor and Abelson, 2016). Individuals and groups will in most cases share different points of view. The attempt to convince everyone in a panel, for example, is basically a political process. In the event where disagreements arise, it may mean that a ruling has to be made by consensus. The variance between technical and clinical issues and the individuals in a policy making process are markedly different. Policies are made after a series of interactions between several individuals and groups. The intervention of both governmental and non-governmental institutions makes the health policy making process a political process.

The policy marketplace micro model deals with the interaction between groups and individuals. The micro model basically assumes that there is a constant interaction between individuals and groups in the desire for satisfaction of demand and supply needs. The micro model tries to assess the disparity between the needs of individuals and groups under different state powers. For example, there might be a difference between the amount supplied and the amount demanded.  The shifts in policy making between governments requires international regulation and thus the micro economic model comes in (Jenson and Fraser, 2015). The micro model does not discriminate between leaderships as it covers both democracies and non-democracies. Also, the micro model does not put a restriction on the currency used. Money is not the only currency since there is allowance of effective leadership and organization to ensure greater intensity through communication.

The health policy making in different nations is faced by several challenges. The issue of cost containment comes in heavily when a nation has to balance between the needs of the patients and the urge to maintain the acceptable standards in terms of quality. According to Nick et al (2015), governments are restrained by external factors during policy making. The cost of implementation is made even worse by the attempt to ensure efficient access to health care. Every nation has a subpopulation disadvantaged in a certain way no matter their wealth or political stability. Ensuring access to health care requires additional resources thus adding to the cost of provision. Technology, as much as it is appreciated, comes with additional complexities and expenses. The additional costs come in for example, when further training is required for the use of technology. The implementation of policies is not an easy task for many nations. Implementation is accompanied by outcomes that change the status of different social groups. The reactions due the outcomes may in most instances require modifications in the policies which come as a challenge in many nations.

Conclusions

The sensitivity of health policy making makes it an important area that requires maximum attention from any government. The fact that the policy making process is political makes decision making a difficult task. The micro economic model assesses the interactions between individuals in their desire of satisfying demand and supply needs. Nations are faced by challenges in cost maintenance, ensuring access to health care, advancement of technology, implementation of health policies and modifications required due to the outcomes and reactions that come about due to implementation of the health policies.