Assignment on Healthcare Policy - United States of America

Running Head: HEALTHCARE POLICY
HEALTHCARE POLICY FOR HEALTH ISSUES IN USA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

HEALTHCARE POLICY1
United States of America is ranked 13th globally for greenhouse gas emissions. The
healthcare system of US is connected with several industrial activities that is the leading cause of
pollution in the country. It pollutes the air, water, and soil of the concerned country. It is a
potential harmful effect on the public health of the country, which needs to be regulated by the
government and the stakeholders involved. The people of America are highly effected by the
outcomes of the greenhouse gas emissions due to the climate change. The recent climate change
has changed the dynamics of the normal functioning of the earth such as the temperatures keeps
warming, alteration in precipitation, extreme weather events that is sudden, rising levels, which
leads to the impact in the food and water people are consuming. Eventually, such emissions
affect the healthcare sector of the country because they use a major amount of the energy such as
electricity, heating and energy intensive goods to increase the efficiency of the care and safety
provided to the service users. They contribute to the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in a total
of 8% (Kashef, 2016).
The government of the country has to come up with certain plans and policies to
eradicate the climate issues. The issue of greenhouse gas emissions affects the country on the
national level and specifically to the population of United States of America. The policy of de-
carbonization was started by the government after seeing the increased rate of carbon footprints
from the healthcare systems and it is the 7th largest carbon dioxide producer (Khan et al., 2014).
A non-profit healthcare system in US known as Kaiser Permanente is planning to be the carbon
net positive by 2025. The University of California Health System is also targeting for carbon
neutrality by 2025, and Cleveland clinic is aiming for carbon neutrality till 2027. 665 million
metric ton of carbon dioxide was emitted by the healthcare sector of USA in 2011, which was
10% of the carbon dioxide gases emitted in USA that year (Howe et al., 2015). When the

HEALTHCARE POLICY2
government is not efficiently taking part then the responsibility of the country goes to the local
and non-governing bodies because the government failed in reducing the usage of fossil fuel
emissions. Further reason for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions were acid rain,
respiratory disease, photochemical smog, and industrial emissions (Revesz et al., 2014).
The government of US spends the most in their healthcare sector, which is evident
because they spent around one-fifth of the GDP or $3 trillion dollars in 2013. Hospitals are
known to be the 2nd most energy intensive buildings in the country because they have large
technological machines for different treatments. Departments such as pharmaceuticals and
medical devices are also a part of the healthcare sectors, which is the reason for severe emission
of pollutants in the country. It has energy intensive structures with cooling, heating, ventilations
systems, medical, computing and laboratory equipment that need electricity and energy
(Eckelman & Sherman, 2016). The government of America came up with research and
developmental programs such as the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy, which was
started for using clean energy technologies in commercial use. A voluntary program was also
conducted known as Natural Gas Star, which was aimed for the reduction of emission. A market
based program was also started known as the Cap-and-trade program that was made for
greenhouse gas emissions but it left the cost effective techniques on the private sectors. An
effective federal policy is required for the emission of greenhouse gases in the country, which is
emitted by the healthcare sectors, but is the also the specific population that gets affected by
them. The Congress was responsible for authorizing the laws for climate change and granting
funds for the concerned issue (Patterson et al., 2014). They came up with the Clean Air Act,
which was the founding base for several policies designed for the issue of climate change in the
US (Dietz et al., 2015). This act collaborated the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with