Using as reference:
Title: Health Policymaking in United States
Edition: 6th (2015)
Author: Longest
Publisher: ACHE Book
ISBN: 978-1-56793-719-0
In not less than 150 words Research a current health policy of your choice and discuss why you find it relevant to you personally and the population. You may also discuss any changes you would make to the policy. Please provide justification for the change.
In two different paragraph with not less than 75 words give your personal opinion to Dianna Adair and Sasha Bluitt
Sasha Bluitt
The Affordable Care Act was enacted in March 2010. The health policy allows more affordable healthcare for all people. Working in healthcare and seeing how having little to no insurance affects people is heartbreaking. I find relevance to this policy because I’m sure we all have had a time where our children or ourselves have been without healthcare for a short period of time. The ACA helps prevent people from being without healthcare and find affordable healthcare facilities and physicians.
Dianna Adair
The policy that Ive chosen to discuss today is that relating to womens reproductive rights. I will try to keep it uncontroversial as I don’t want to spark any wars! The unfortunate reality is that over half the states in the U. S. have curtailed womens reproductive rights. I am not talking specifically about abortion (which I know can be a heated discussion primarily debated by middle aged white men instead of women). The abortion issue has, however, affected policy that governs other benefits of reproductive healthcare. Specifically, several states have made it their mission to remove family planning funds which pay for birth control and reproductive health checkups.
Planned Parenthood is a major provider of reproductive healthcare services, with low-cost STD testing, free and low-cost birth control, and free or low-cost exams to screen for cervical cancer or other conditions relevant to reproductive health. Yes, some of these facilities do provide abortion access, but the majority of patients come there for comprehensive care for other issues. In an attempt to punish Planned Parenthood for offering abortion services, their funding has been slashed in policy enactment in several states. In 2018, a Tennessee law was enacted to exclude agencies that provide abortion from eligibility to receive family planning funds, even if those funds do not directly go to abortion services (Nash, Gold, Mohammed, Ansari-Thomas, & Cappello, 2018).
Back in 2015, I was living in Texas and didnt have many womens health clinics in my area. One only accepted a particular type of Medicaid, and the other was Planned Parenthood. At the time, Texas had enacted policy that defunded Planned Parenthood for the same reason as Tennessee did in 2018. I needed an exam and birth control, but the only insurance I had was the state-funded Womens Health Plan. I ended up having to pay out of pocket 800 dollars to get the care I needed that should have been covered by my insurance, but no one in my area accepted it. I was a single mom at the time to a 5-year-old and was already working two jobs to afford my apartment and keep food on the table plus pay for childcare. The backlash from this policy did eventually result in a Judge blocking the defunding of Planned Parenthood in 2017 due to the horrific consequences (Almasy, 2017).
I know Ive been a bit long-winded, so I should get to the point! Family planning funding should be given to all clinics willing to provide the services, regardless of if they offer abortion services. There is a lot of evidence showing that access to low-cost or free birth control significantly reduces the amount of abortions, so those who are pro-birth should consider it as an option to stop abortion. If it were up to me, policy would dictate an appropriate amount of funds to these services for all women so that low-income families do not have to struggle to support extra unexpected children or go without regular check-ups. Cervical and breast cancers have a greater survival rate when they are caught as early as possible, so access to reproductive health services is vital to this process.
Regards,
Dianna
References:
Almasy, S. (2017). Judge blocks Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood. Retrieved from:
Nash, E., Gold, R. B., Mohammed, L., Ansari-Thomas, Z., & Cappello, O. (2018). Laws affecting reproductive health and rights: State policy trends at Midyear, 2018. Retrieved from:
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