The process of health care policy making requires soundness of mind as it touches human life. The process should not be interfered with for self or political gains. The process is not linear, the domains that play part overlap each other and the parties involved should be objective and accept the diverse views of all the participants. The process involves the problem identification, policy analysis and development, policy enactment and implementation (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015).
The initial stage majorly deals with identifying the health problem and its effect to the larger population. This entails; collecting, summarizing and interpreting available information relating to the problem, laying out the frequency, brutality and economic impact of the problem and framing the issue of concern in a way that it becomes an issue that a policy solution must be sought (Wong S, 2017). The second stage entails looking for all possible policy solutions and narrowing down to the most appropriate one. This takes into considerations health impact, cost of implementation verse the benefits and other factors like prevailing political environment.
The third step revolves around laying strategies of policy development. This can be in terms of all information needed, human and resources needs and engaging all the stakeholders involved. The federal, state and local guidelines must be followed in this stage if the policy must materialize. The policy enactment stage involves the relevant authorities like federal, state and local putting the policy into effect (Point Park University Online, 2021). This can be in form of appending signatures and publishing the policy as a law, legislation or procedure. The last stage, implementation, entails gauging the significance of the policy by finding out whether it is fulfilling its intended purpose. The compliance with the policy is also evaluated, and if any change is needed it is adopted to enhance the policy.
In 2020 the state of Florida passed a health care law CS/CS/SB 406. The law relates to minor providing parent or guardian consent when seeking abortion from a physician. The law is beneficial in that it protects the right of life of unborn children and also it protects the medics from legal battles that come after a minor abortion goes sour. The disadvantage of the law is that it may deny minors without ability to raise the child an opportunity to abort. Also, minors may engage in lies to cover up their ages (The Florida Senate, 2020).
The common sources of health care laws are constitution, regulations, statutes and common laws. The constitution for example gives the citizens the right to life and thus the federal, state and local governments have a duty to protect individuals from hazards that may affect their health. Common laws are procedures that are set by courts of law in determining the outcomes of cases. these laws borrow from outcomes of similar cases that have been solved before.
