Politics and Patient Protection
The Affordable Care Act proved to be the most inclusive health coverage act as it covered most Americans including low-income earners. However, there have been many efforts to replace it as opponents of the act argue that it does not effectively cover all people. Given that most legislators’ main aim is to ensure that they are reelected, they tend to weigh on various factors (Pollack Porter, Rutkow, and McGinty, 2018). The cost in this case is losing voters from people who would lose their healthcare coverage or those who will suffer from increased costs.
They must also consider the political cost of supporting a policy that might be unpopular in a given region. For instance, trying to support ACA in a predominantly Republican way will likely lead to a loss of reelection opportunities. On the cost, the legislators must also consider the potential cost of repealing the ACA and the popularity of the replacement act.
When considering the benefits, the legislators must consider who will benefit from the policy. Notably, the legislators can target the potential benefactors to understand their position. A policy can benefit individuals, businesses, advocacy groups, the government, and even targeted groups (Pollack Porter, Rutkow, and McGinty, 2018). If they can get immense support from support groups who are in favor of repealing the ACA, they are more likely to support it. Additionally, they can also consider their ideologies and the party’s ideologies before taking a side.
Through the cost-benefit analysis, legislators are therefore cautious when engaging in repeal/replace of the ACA. While some might focus on a full replacement of the policy others can seek to modify the Act to ensure that they do not offend those who stand to benefit from the Act. To increase their chances of being reelected, most of the legislators analyze the voters’ views. They seek to understand the priorities and concerns raised by their constituents.
Mostly they do this through gathering public opinion data, engaging in direct communication, and extensive polling. After understanding their voters’ requests they make informed recommendations and they can take given policies towards the national policies. Notably, when dealing with issues such as ACA which affect the majority of the constituents they are more likely to be wary of the voters’ opinion.
Nonetheless, legislative leaders also have party affiliations and ideologies that they are trying to implement. These factors usually influence their decision-making and sometimes are against the preference of their voters. This shows that the public might have a given desire for a policy but their legislator is affiliated with a party that does not support the policy and therefore they refuse to support it.
This explains why many health policies tend to be oppressive to the voters because most politicians are focused on meeting their own needs and pushing their party agendas (Taylor et al., 2017). It is however clear that legislators have a big challenge when trying to balance between the voters’ needs and their political interests but this is crucial to attaining democracy in the country.
References
Pollack Porter, K.M., Rutkow, L. and McGinty, E.E. (2018). The Importance of Policy Change for Addressing Public Health Problems. Public Health Reports, [online] 133(1_suppl), pp.9S14S. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354918788880.
Taylor, D., Olshansky, E.F., Woods, N.F., Johnson-Mallard, V., Safriet, B.J. and Hagan, T. (2017). Corrigendum to position statement: Political interference in sexual and reproductive health research and health professional education [Nursing Outlook 65/2 (2017) 242–245]. Nursing Outlook, 65(3), pp.346–350. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2017.05.003.
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