Participating in Policymaking

Heath Policymaking
Name of the Student
Professor’s Name
Heath Policymaking
EXPLORING THE CONTENT AND DOMAIN OF THE H.R.4712 BILL
Background
Health legislations play an important role in safeguarding the interests of patients and healthcare consumers. Different countries have their health legislations and regulations for ensuring appropriate and evidence-based practice. Health act preserves injustice and inequality across the concerned stakeholders. Both suppliers and demanders of healthcare interventions should be sensitized and aware of the content of any health bill. Such awareness is necessary to ensure safe and quality healthcare across concerned stakeholders. The present article reflects the content and domain of the health legislation (H.R.4712).
The Content of the Bill
The H.R.4712 act or the Born-Alive Abortion Survivor’s Act establishes the requirements for healthcare professionals to exhibit competence and appropriate certification in managing a child who has survived an abortion or an attempted abortion. The health legislation bill is based on three interrelated perspectives. First of all, the bill emphasizes that the healthcare practitioners who were present at the time of birth of such child to exercise the same degree of care for preserving the life and health of the child like any of their counterparts who were born alive at the same gestational age. Secondly, the bill endorses that the respective child who survived an abortion or an attempted abortion must be immediately shifted and transported for in-patient hospitalization after the administration of emergency care services.

Finally, the bill mandates that any healthcare professional or non-medical employee of a hospital or physician’s clinic should immediately report non-compliance of the healthcare bill to appropriate authorities promptly (Republican Policy Committee, 2017).
Update on the Bill
On January 16th, 2018 the H.R.4712 bill was declared a closed rule. Although there could be general debate over a specific period, no amendments can be further considered for the bill. Hence, the provisions of the bill should be obeyed by the relevant stakeholders to avoid legal litigations.
Role Play Session
The respective health bill would be critiqued from the perspective of a healthcare demander. Being a demander of healthcare service my role is to ensure that the healthcare interventions are delivered in-line with the protocol laid down by the standards of care. Demanders of health bills and health policies are those who consider and evaluate such bills and policies are relevant to the health of themselves or related stakeholder groups for whom they care. Demanders consider that the respective bills and policies should have the desired end that motivates them to participate in political markets (Longest, 2016). Being the President of the Healthcare Consumers Forum my job responsibility is to ensure that any patient should receive the highest standards of care that are aligned with the regulatory guidelines. I am entrusted to report violations in healthcare services to the appropriate political and policymaking authorities. I had to lobby with the local and state health regulatory authorities to implement the H.R.4712 in our locality. However, I also voiced for the Medical Authorities where they thought that certain provisions of the bill were not rational. One such area was to ensure same standards of care for any children who were born at normal gestational age. Individuals who survived abortion or attempted abortion might need additional healthcare facilities that were not mentioned in the bill. The clinical fraternity was apprehensive regarding such clause as such provisions of the bill could deny their insurance claims for the care they remitted to ensure positive health outcomes across concerned stakeholders. On the other hand, if the physicians are apprehensive, then the healthcare consumers would have been deprived of quality care. Hence, I lobbied with the political authorities to make amendments in the bill. The amendment desired is “the respective healthcare practitioners should select appropriate and highest standards of care for children who survived abortion or attempted abortion irrespective of the financial implications of care.”
References
Longest, B. (2016). Health policymaking in the United States (6th ed.). Chicago: Health Administration Press. ISBN 978-1-56793-719-0
Republican Policy Committee.(2017). H.R. 4712: Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr4712, Accessed 26th March, 2018