HEALTHCARE POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES

HEALTHCARE POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES 2

Summary of Healthcare Policy

Health policy can be defined as the decisions, actions and plans that are undertaken with

the aim of achieving given specific healthcare goals within a particular society (Harrington &

Estes, 2008). For the case of the US, the healthcare policy and regulation has been a complex

issue affecting costs that individual citizens to pay for the care, their access to care and also the

quality of care received. The main objective of the healthcare policy in the US is to help

American citizens receive the best possible healthcare and taking necessary action in the

protection of patient safety, quality improvement of medical devices and products and to aid in

the improvementofcaregiven in the various health care facilities and by various practitioners.

Some of the organizations that have influenced the healthcare policy in the US include

the American medical Association, American Association ofretired persons (AARP), AFL-CIO

and large health insurance organizations such as Kaiser Permanente. In the early years,

healthcare in the US majorly took the form of domestic medicine mainly provided by mothers,

wives and occasional visits to the patient’s home by doctors. However, there have been major

healthcare legislations that have aided in the current healthcare policy in the US. These include

the socialsecurity act of 1965 by PresidentLyndon Johnson that saw the establishmentof

Medicare which wouldprovide public health coverage to the seniorcitizens overthe age of65.

Medicaid was also established as part of the 1965 social security amendment that helped in the

providing the poor families with public health coverage. In 1972 the social security act was

amended by President Richard Nixon so that Medicare would expand coverage to people with

disability who hadbeen recipients ofsocialsecurity benefits fortwo years or more and

individuals suffering from serious kidney disease.