Healthcare policy for the homeless

Healthcare policy for the homeless

Introduction

Healthcare is a fundamental requirement for every person in any country around the world. It is everyone’s right to have access to good healthcare which is affordable. Thus, it is upon every government to provide quality, accessible and sufficient healthcare services to its esteemed citizens. This study explores ways of implementing a healthcare policy in Maryland that serves to allow for the provision of mobile healthcare services to the people who are homeless and how to lobby for the legislators and other lawmakers to support this policy. This new policy will require modification of some of the laws and it might also face challenges for its implementation due to the existing laws.

Modification of the existing law

The idea of having mobile health services to the homeless is a new concept that will have so many plans put in place to have it fully implemented. To implement the new policy, several amendments will have to be made on the current laws. Already there are laws and policies in existence that relates to the running and operation mobile health clinics (Porter-O’Grady, 2018). Even though these policies assist in the provision of health services by the mobile health facilities, these policies do not cater for the homeless people. Thus it is difficult to utilize these mobile health facilities without the modification of the laws. What is needed is to modify the laws governing provision of mobile health services to cover the needs of the homeless people unconditionally.

Even though this policy seeks to expand the Medicaid in Maryland, the concerned physicians in Maryland oppose the idea because menial reimbursement rates (“Homelessness in Maryland”, 2018). Again the Medicaid does not cover the prescription co-pays thus limiting many from accessing this Medicaid. Thus, the laws need to be amended to increase reimbursement rates for physicians and let the Medicaid to cover for prescription co-pays.

Advocacy for needs of the homeless started being fronted from back in the year 1988 by the nurses who wanted the homeless people to access healthcare services like any other citizens. This advocacy went through several stages including the leading in the development of broad-based community venture that was to serve and access the less fortunate. There was a need to respond to the community health needs. Since then, there has been then push to have policies that take into consideration the needs of the homeless community in terms of the medical services.

Already there other health programs that take care of the medical services of the sheltered community. The programs allow for the sheltered people to be served by the mobile health clinics. Such street health programs are implemented in cities such as Atlanta which benefits thousands of poor people in need of medical services. These laws will be modified to also cater to the health needs of the homeless people. Therefore it is easy that this program can be modified to accommodate the homeless citizens too. The program will still be run in the same manner as that that takes care of the sheltered community by just allowing the homeless access the services without restrictions (Costello, 2011). In this case, mobile health services will be taken to those areas where the homeless people are located. Furthermore, the laws will have to be modified to allow for the federal government to cater for the costs of these groups of people who are not insured.

Furthermore, in Maryland, 40% of the health problems faced by the homeless people are not covered by the insurance(“Homelessness in Maryland”, 2018). The insurance policies in this state should be modified for the homeless people to benefit from the cover.   Most of the unsheltered community people do not access the fixed health institutional facilities. Thus there is a need to amend the health policies to make them portable and mobile that will help them where they live (Porter-O’Grady, 2018).. These laws should allow for any vehicle to be used for mobile clinics for logistical issues.

Effects of the existing laws on the advocacy

There are existing laws in this state of Maryland would highly hinder the full implementation the new policy on the healthcare of the homeless.  The kind of laws that would make it hard for this policy to go through are the laws that govern the establishment of mobile services.  The policy will face challenges from the laws such as the law that bars uninsured people from being covered by the federal program. Citizens who are not insured are not eligible for the medical for the medical coverage offered by the federal state which covers millions of the low-income Americans. This will, make it difficult to implement this policy since most of the homeless citizens are not insured.  Some of the laws allow only the health benefits for the veterans who have injuries to access services (Costello, 2011). Thus it would be hard to offer the health service with similar interests to the homeless people who are not veterans and yet they have injuries.  Furthermore, the other laws specifying then type of vehicles that are to be used for such kind of mobile clinics would be difficult comply with. This is because some of the areas are inaccessible for the standard size recommended.

The methods to be used to convince the legislators and other lawmakers to support the policy

For this policy of mobile health services for the Maryland homeless people to go through, it will require lobbying for support from the lawmakers and other legislators. This is because they are the people in the center of implementation of policies and therefore they have to be convinced of the benefits of this policy. Various methods will be used, and the “three legs” method would be mainly employed to convince them.

In the three stool method of lobbying for the support of the legislators and other law lawmakers, there are there key pillars that will be deployed. In the first approach of the three leg method, the lobbying will be carried out by the experts. The responsible legislators will have to build a good relationship with the legislators and the concerned staffs and other related lawmakers. This is in the quest to approach to be very effective. In order to support the efforts of cooperating with these lobbyists there will need to be members of a professional body working together with the lobbyists.

The second leg of the three legs is going for the grassroots lobbying which would entail involving the people in the community come and help in championing for this course of getting support from the legislators for this policy (“The Three Legged Stool of Lobbying The three key elements of lobbying according”, 2018). At this stage, people within the community who are knowledgeable about the policy would be incorporated as the main assets to champion this course. It would entail liaising school legislators, health department and other leadership councils to weigh in this matter. It will also involve writing letters and make phone calls.

The third leg of the three leg approach will be the media leg. This is the approach that is used to spread the information about this policy that will help even the legislators to be informed about the idea behind the policy.  It could be achieved through radio, newspaper, local radio or television. Informal media such as the congregation bulleting and notice could also be used in passing the information. This approach is applied because the legislators are normally the ones interested in the news and the information will reach them faster through the news.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is every human being’s right to have access to easy, affordable and accessible medical services. Just like other common citizens, the homeless people living in Maryland have got a right to access to quality and affordable health care services. However, this group of people is normally uncomfortable with visiting the fixed healthcare facility for fear of stigmatization. Therefore there is a high need to have them access these healthcare services through mobile clinics. These mobile clinics can only be realized by enacting a new policy that allows for the establishment of mobile clinics that will serve the homeless community.  The existing laws will have to amend that will give room for the operation of these healthcare facilities.  Other challenge that may be experienced is the fear of the homeless people trusts in the quality of the healthcare service that is provided by the mobile clinics. Most of the patients again are in very remote inaccessible areas where the mobile clinic vehicle cannot maneuver. The logistical challenges may interfere with the quality of the services that will be implemented. Therefore, there needs to be intensive sensitization of the concerned homeless community to embrace the new mobile health services. Furthermore, the legislators need to put in place more laws and policies that allow for quality health services.

References

Porter-O’Grady, T. (2018). Leadership Advocacy: Bringing Nursing to the Homeless and Underserved. Nursing administration quarterly, 42(2), 115-122.

Costello, M. A. (2011). Heroes or Hopeless: Homeless Veterans Caught in a Dysfunctional System. JL Soc’y, 13, 417.

The Three Legged Stool of Lobbying The three key elements of lobbying according. (2018). Coursehero.com. Retrieved 10 April 2018, from https://www.coursehero.com/file/p1sp3ag/The-Three-Legged-Stool-of-Lobbying-The-three-key-elements-of-lobbying-according/

Homelessness in Maryland. (2018). Health Care for the Homeless – Baltimore and Maryland. Retrieved 11 April 2018, from http://www.hchmd.org/homelessness-maryland