Benchmark Assignment: Population Health Policy Analysis Essay

Sample Answer for Benchmark Assignment: Population Health Policy Analysis Essay Included After Question

Select a current or proposed health care policy that is designed to improve a specific population’s access to quality, cost-effective health care. In a paper of 1,000-1,250 words, include the following:

Explain the policy and how it is designed to improve cost-effectiveness and health care equity for the population. Is the policy financially sound? Why or why not? How does the policy account for any relevant ethical, legal, and political factors and the nursing perceptive one must consider when implementing it?
To what state, federal, global health policies or goals is this particular policy related? How well do you think the policy is designed to achieve those goals?
Finally, discuss the advocacy strategies you would employ on behalf of your population to ensure they have access to the benefits of the policy. Explain, from a Christian perspective, the professional and moral obligation of advanced registered nurse to advocate for and promote health and prevent disease among diverse populations.

You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Lopes Write. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: Benchmark Assignment: Population Health Policy Analysis Essay

Title: Benchmark Assignment: Population Health Policy Analysis Essay

Drug spending in America increased by more than 12% in 2014 and ever since this year, the cost of prescription medications has continued to rise. The exorbitant prescription drug pricing in the country has become a major concern to policymakers, payers, prescribers and most importantly, the patients (Feldman, 2019). Despite a review of the origins and the cause of high drug prices in the United States of America, policy options have not contained the continued rise in this essential component of care. Nonetheless, even with tough rhetoric and criticism by President Donald Trump, the cost of prescription drugs continue to soar. Due to public sentiments about the unclear rise in prescription drug prices, lawmakers in the country proposed the Prescription Drug Pricing Policy in 2017 to institute deliberate changes to ensure that medications are affordable (Graber, 2017). However, political parties in America have not yet been aligned to respond to the drug pricing reforms which have attracted bipartisan interests at the expense of the citizens. Efforts have been made to amend the drug pricing in America.

The subsequent study delves into an elaborate discussion of the proposed Prescription Drug Policy of 2017. A description of how the policy relates to other health policies in the United States of America will be made. The benefit of the policy in improving access to care for African Americans with diabetes will also be explored. Finally, the Christian perspective, as well as a professional and moral obligation of advanced registered nurse in advocating for the promotion of the policy will also be discussed.

Prescription Drug Pricing Policy of 2017

Medication pricing is one of the legislative lineups for the American health reforms as politicians aim to make amendments to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The per capita expenditure in prescription drug in the United States of America is very high and by far exceeds all other countries of the world (Marzilli Ericson, 2014). Due to this, attention has been drawn across the media and political spectrum for a need to restructure the competitive drug pricing practices which have led to a high cost of care (Ho, Hogan & Scott Morton, 2017). In May 2017, the legislation that led to the formulation of the Prescription Drug Pricing Policy was introduced by Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) (Feldman, 2019). The enactment proposed aimed to address price gouging in a strategy that would require drug manufacturers to report any significant increases in price for certain drugs to the Department of Health and Human Services. This enactment applies to any prescription medication with a retail price of at least $100 per month (Graber, 2017). According to the Prescription Drug Pricing Policy, the cost of a drug should not increase by 10% or more within a period of one year. Nonetheless, the legislation requires that prescription medication prices not to exceed 25% or more of the total cost of the drug for a period of 36 months. Prescription drug manufacturers who violate these provisions by failing to report price changes would face a civil penalty. The proposed legislation is consistent with the requirement of Medicaid Drug Debate Program which guarantees providing insurance coverage to manufacturer’s drugs that receive lowest net prices (Heiss et al., 2013). The proposed policy is also in line with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Act of 2017 which advocates for the increase in the generic drug competition (Feldman, 2019). Through this approach, the generic and biosimilar prescription drugs will be availed in the American market to counter the irregular drug price hikes.

The proposed policy aims to address prescription medication barrier faced by the minority communities in the United States of America. Specifically, the policy, if passed, will help the African Americans diagnosed with diabetes to afford the drugs required to

manage the condition. It is apparent that the costs of medication cause a significant burden on the financial reserves of black-Americans with diabetes. The policy requires Medicare to lobby for lower drug prices charged by manufacturers. With this, Medicare will provide cover to prescription drugs required by African Americans for diabetes management to cap the out-of-pocket expenditures among the population group (Dafny, Gruber & Ody, 2015). Besides, the proposed enactment promotes transparency in drug pricing to support care for minorities in the United States of America. The policy is financially sound and requires manufacturers to comply with the regulations.

Benchmark Assignment Population Health Policy Analysis Essay

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The policy account for ethical and legal factors which advocates for equal access to healthcare. Affordable care is one of the moral issues that influence the political framework of a country. In American for instance, political debates often focus on how to lower the ever-increasing cost of care (Schoonveld, 2016). Once enacted, the policy will solve the social challenge of inadequate and inequality in the delivery of care services due to cost factors.

The Prescription Drug Pricing Policy is not a standalone proposed enactment. Vermont enacted the policy in June 6, 2016, and Nevada repealed their health law on June 15, 2017, which established provisions to contain prescription drug prices (Feldman, 2019). According to these states, the policy aims to lower the drug prices by ensuring that the latter do not exceed the medical consumer price index within the past 12 months. The policy also advocates for transparency in pricing by the pharmaceutical industry as a remedy to exploitation of consumers (Mintzes et al., 2013). By reporting the additional information to justify a price increase, pharmaceutical retailers ensure that consumers receive quality on the extra cost for the drugs they purchase.

Advocacy Strategy for the Policy

The minority communities and particularly African Americans with diabetes are the main targets for this proposed policy. In the event that the policy is enacted into law, then black-Americans will be encouraged to enroll in the Medicaid program (Handel & Kolstad, 2015). The latter ensures that third-party payers offer reimbursement for African Americans who use their financial resources to pay for diabetes drugs. This ensures that the burden of care is reduced for the population group. The other advocacy strategy will be to report those drug manufacturers charging exorbitant prices to the Joint Commission and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (Kesselheim, Avorn & Sarpatwari, 2016). This ensures that consumers are not exploited as they seek care. However, from a Christian and moral perspective, a registered nurse should advocate for the distinction between generic and brand name medication (Graber, 2017). This ensures that patients are not duped in pricing due to paying for medications not administered. A registered nurse should also advocate for equality in care by addressing implicit racial bias in medication prescribing practice that might affect access to quality care.

Benchmark Assignment: Population Health Policy Analysis Essay Conclusion

Prescription Drug Pricing is one of the landmark policies that will guarantee equitable and affordable care to the American populations. The policy advocates for regulations in drug pricing to ensure that consumers are not exploited. However, despite its benefits, the policy still remains a manuscript that is yet to be enacted. It is an appeal to the Trump administration to amend the proposed legislation so as to guarantee quality to African Americans with diabetes.

You are required to cite five to 10 sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to Lopes Write. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Lopes Write Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.

Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.

Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?

Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.

Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.

If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.

I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.

As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:

Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.

Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
Include in-text citations in your response
Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
Follow APA-7th edition
Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
Follow APA 7th edition
Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
Here are some helpful links
Student paper example
Citing Sources
The Writing Center is a great resource