Policy and Advocacy for Population Health

Running head: POLICY AND ADVOACY FOR POPULATION HEALTH
POLICY AND ADVOCACY FOR POPULATION HEALTH
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1POLICY AND ADVOCACY FOR POPULATION HEALTH
Introduction
The American Nurses Association (ANA, 2019), recognizes advocacy for patients across
communities as well as across workplace environments, as a key component underlying the
professional duties of Registered Nurses (RN). Considering that nurses play a key role in
determining the health and wellbeing of a nation, Milstead and Short (2019), denote that apart
from exercising clinical expertise, the scope of nursing is undergoing gradual expansion to
include health promotion for patients via political decision-making and activism, along with
entrepreneurship. The following paper will hence focus development of an advocacy testimony
on legislative proposal, namely, the current efforts to repeal of Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act (PPACA).
Discussion
Part 1: Legislation Comparison Grid
The PPACA was implemented in the year, with the aim to provide insurance coverage for
healthcare which is affordable, subsidized and accessible for households belonging to income
groups ranging from 100 to 400% of the federal poverty line (Sommers, Gunja, Finegold &
Musco, 2015). Despite its noble cause of ensuring healthcare improvement and subsidization for
economically underprivileged families with chronic illnesses, the bill has been met with
considerable criticism of in the form of a repeal by the current Republican Government with
Donald Trump as the present President of the nation (Quadagno & Lanford, 2019). The
following highlights the components of the legislative comparison grid of this legislative
proposal.

2POLICY AND ADVOCACY FOR POPULATION HEALTH
Legislative Intent: The key components of the ACA which have been met with
considerable criticism and hence forms the legislative intent of its repeal, is the liability to be
penalized in the absence of the individual mandate, increased tax payments and employment
losses for middle-class families and companies which rely on private and employer based
insurances and are required to pay premiums and a resultant steep rise in healthcare coverage
costs especially for families who had continued to avoid treatment for prolonged chronic
illnesses (Willison & Singer, 2017).
Target Population: As a response to the low income families targeted by the ACA, the
repeal of the ACA by the Republicans was intended to benefit a target population of private
insurance companies, businesses or employers providing insurance coverage and middle class
families who were reliant on private and employer insurances and were required to pay
premiums or the Cadillac tax as per the ACA (Rosenbaum et al., 2017).
Target Opponents: The Republican Government, which has been in place since the
Presidential election of Donald Trump, supports the legislative proposal of repeal and hence, is a
key proponent of this bill. The opponents are the Democrats, the government which had been in
place during the rule of former president the Mr. Barrack Obama (Karaca-Mandic, Jena & Ross,
2017). In addition to the respective political parties, as reported by a survey conducted by the
Kaiser Family Foundation, the rate of proponents and opponents of the repeal has been
fluctuating, with supporters for the same reducing from 60% to 27% are being informed of the
impacts of healthcare coverage loss as a result of this legislation (Mangan, 2017).
Bill Process: The intent of this proposed repeal was to initially remove sections of the act,
namely the individual mandate. The existing government has presently claimed to completely
repeal the law via a letter to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals from the Department of Justice,