Policy, Power, and Politics in Health Care Provision

Running head: POLICY, POWER AND POLITICS IN HEALTH CARE PROVISION 1
Policy, Power, and Politics in Health Care Provision
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Institutional Affiliation

POLICY, POWER AND POLITICS IN HEALTH CARE PROVISION 2
Why is a policy cycle an appropriate tool for developing a new policy?
A policy cycle is a tool that is used to assess the process of coming up with a policy. It
influences how policy developers view the process of policy development. The policy cycle was
created using Harold Lasswell’s theory of policy, and a lot of people use it to make it easier to
develop a policy. Using the policy cycle approach gives a simple way in which policy developers
can imagine the process of policy development and implementation. A policy cycle is a suitable
means to be used while creating a new policy for various reasons (Althaus, Bridgman, & Davis,
2013). Some of these reasons include; first, it makes it easier for policy developers to develop
policies. As the steps are spelled out, everyone will know what follows and when they are given
different roles, they will know what is expected of them. Also, the policy cycle can be used to
create a timeline for policy development. As the policy cycle shows the steps that should be
taken, the team can estimate what time each level can take. Thus through this estimation, the
team will know when they expect to finish the process and how much time each member has to
dedicate to the completion of the process (Young, 2013). With a policy cycle, it will be easier to
delineate a policy and evaluate its effectiveness all through its development step by step. Thus by
doing this, the team can assess the efficacy of the policy, and if it is not satisfactory, they can
correct it. It will be easy to adjust this as the development is divided into steps and the problem
can be backtracked, and a solution found faster. Also, each level can be evaluated, and issues
related to each level found. Once these are recognized, the team can come up with strategies to
tackle these problems in each stage (Norris, 2011).
How is a health policy different from a government policy document?

POLICY, POWER AND POLITICS IN HEALTH CARE PROVISION 3
Health policy is a set of actions, decisions, and plans that are done so that a particular set
of health goals in a community are achieved. They can be developed by both governmental and
nongovernmental agencies and are designed to promote a specific set of health objectives. A
government policy document is a record which gives details of the set of government policies
and the policies’ commitments regarding what needs to be done to implement them where
necessary. It outlines the step that government officials take so that they can easily apply these
government policies (Buse, Mays, & Walt, 2012). These two are different in several ways; first
is that a health policy focuses on goals to be achieved regarding the health of a community, it
outlines what is expected from different groups regarding health. On the other hand, a
government policy document focuses on general policies that affect a country not just on the
issue. It covers a wide range of topics that a government needs to set policies on. Next is that
health policy is a set of health objectives that need to be achieved on issues that affect health.
Therefore, it sets out what policies need to be done so that the health issues can be resolved.
However, a government policy document sets out how a set of policies should be implemented.
It gives how it should be completed and might provide a timeline for all of this to be done.
Another difference is that health policy is set by individuals, physicians, and pharmaceutical
organization so that they can solve issues in the health sector while a government policy
document is compiled by individuals in the government as a framework to implement different
government policies to deal with the various issues in a country (Freeman, & Maybin, 2011).
How does the “new public health” differ from the old public health approach?