Assignment: Agenda Comparison Grid and Fact Sheet

It may seem to you that healthcare has been a national topic of debate among political leaders for as long as you can remember.

Healthcare has been a policy item and a topic of debate not only in recent times but as far back as the administration of the second U.S. president, John Adams. In 1798, Adams signed legislation requiring that 20 cents per month of a sailor’s paycheck be set aside for covering their medical bills. This represented the first major piece of U.S. healthcare legislation, and the topic of healthcare has been woven into presidential agendas and political debate ever since.

As a healthcare professional, you may be called upon to provide expertise, guidance and/or opinions on healthcare matters as they are debated for inclusion into new policy. You may also be involved in planning new organizational policy and responses to changes in legislation. For all of these reasons you should be prepared to speak to national healthcare issues making the news.

In this Assignment, you will analyze recent presidential healthcare agendas. You also will prepare a fact sheet to communicate the importance of a healthcare issue and the impact on this issue of recent or proposed policy.

To Prepare:

Review the agenda priorities of the current/sitting U.S. president and at least one previous presidential administration.
Select an issue related to healthcare that was addressed by two U.S. presidential administrations (current and previous).
Consider how you would communicate the importance of a healthcare issue to a legislator/policymaker or a member of their staff for inclusion on an agenda.
Use your Week 1 Discussion post to help with this assignment.

The Assignment: (1- to 2-page Comparison Grid, 1-Page Analysis, and 1-page narrative) with a title page. This is an APA paper. Use 2-3 course resources and at least 2 outside resources.

Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid

Use the Agenda Comparison Grid Template found in the Learning Resources and complete the Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid based on the current/sitting U.S. president and the previous president, and their agendas related to the population health concern you selected. Be sure to address the following:

Identify and provide a brief description of the population health concern you selected.
Explain how each of the presidential administrations approached the issue.
Identify the allocation of resources that the presidents dedicated to this issue.

Part 2: Agenda Comparison Grid Analysis

Using the information you recorded in Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid on the template, complete the Part 2: Agenda Comparison Grid Analysis portion of the template, by addressing the following:

Which administrative agency (like HHS, CDC, FDA, OHSA) would most likely be responsible for helping you address the healthcare issue you selected and why is this agency the most helpful for the issue?
How do you think your selected healthcare issue might get on the presidential agenda? How does it stay there?
An entrepreneur/champion/sponsor helps to move the issue forward. Who would you choose to be the entrepreneur/champion/sponsor (this can be a celebrity, a legislator, an agency director, or others) of the healthcare issue you selected and why would this person be a good entrepreneur/ champion/sponsor? An example is Michael J. Fox is champion for Parkinson’s disease.

Part 3: Fact Sheet

Using the information recorded on the template in Parts 1 and 2, develop a 1-page fact sheet that you could use to communicate with a policymaker/legislator or a member of their staff for this healthcare issue. Be sure to address the following:

Summarize why this healthcare issue is important and should be included in the agenda for legislation.
Justify the role of the nurse in agenda setting for healthcare issues.

Solution:

Agenda Comparison Grid Assignment Template for Part 1 and Part 2

Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid

Use this Agenda Comparison Grid to document information about the population health/healthcare issue you selected and the presidential agendas. By completing this grid, you will develop a more in depth understanding of your selected issue and how you might position it politically based on the presidential agendas.

You will use the information in the Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid to complete the remaining Part 2 and Part 3 of your Assignment.

Identify the Population Health concern you selected.	The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Outbreak
Describe the Population Health concern you selected.	The Covid-29 pandemic is a public health concern not only in the U.S but across the globe. This disease was first announced in China on December 31, 2019, after the discovering of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan. Despite the efforts to contain the virus in China and avoid its spread to other nations, the virus spread across the globe within several months. The first case in America was reported on 20^th January 2020. On 31^st January 2020, former President Donald Trump declared the Covid-19 outbreak a public health emergency. Since then, the Americans have been fighting the pandemic using various strategies including isolation, the closing of borders, banning social gathering, using facemasks and personal protective equipment, and recently, vaccinations which became available on 20^th December and have been proven to protect persons against severe illness from coronavirus, hospitalizations, and death (CDC, 2021). As of 1^st September 2021, the total coronavirus cases in the U.S are 40,114,099, 657,910, and 31,020,612. The first reported American death from coronavirus was in February.
Administration (President Name)	Donald Trump	Joe Biden
Explain how each of the two presidential administrations approached the issue.	President Donald Trump approached coronavirus firstly by declaring it a public health emergency. He proceeded to restrict flights from China. However, the initial response was slow and it took time to prepare the healthcare system, start testing, and stop other travel to contain the disease. Trump was optimistic and in many instances his critics accused him of underestimating the virus’ severity. Trump allocated $8.3 billion on 6^th March 2020 to fight disease (Neundorf & Pardos-Prado, 2021). On 13^th March, he declared the outbreak a national emergency. Under Trump’s administration, the government purchased huge quantities of medical equipment and invoked assistance from the Defense Production Act of 1950. Trump, rather than having a coordinated, national plan to scale up and implement public health control measures for coronavirus, the Trump Administration chose to leave the responsibility of responding to the pandemic with the states and having the federal government serve as back-up and supplier of last resort (Lancet, 2020). This reflected federalism and decentralization of U.S public health, lack of a national plan, and lack of federal guidelines on addressing coronavirus which contributed to the worsening of the pandemic (Baccini et al., 2019). Severally, Trump showed how he was misinformed and less informed about the pandemic, losing the Public trust in his ability to fight the pandemic. For instance, he questioned the use of masks and attributed the high cases to increased testing without any data to back up his claims (Neundorf & Pardos-Prado, 2021).	Joe Biden, the present U.S president, took over from Trump and continued the fight against coronavirus. He addressed Covid-19 by establishing a White House Covid-19 Task Force, federal emergencies to allow funds authorization and resource mobilization, declaring national emergencies under the Stafford Act and the National Emergencies Act, signing emergency spending bills to provide trillions for addressing the pandemic, and activating the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to expand production, prioritize, and allocate supplies in the U.S. They also launched the “Operation Warp Speed” to expedite the research, development, and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines (Baccini et al., 2019). Supporting Medicaid programs also helped speed up the fight against the pandemic, including increasing vaccination rates in the U.S. Further, Joe Biden promoted vaccinations by ensuring the administration of 100 million diseases by 19^th March 2021. By July 4^th, 2021, under Biden’s administration, 67% of the U.S adult citizens had received at the minimum one dose of the vaccine.
Identify the allocations of resources that the current and previous presidents dedicated to this issue.	Trump dedicated financial resources to purchase large quantities of medical equipment to fight against coronavirus.	Joe Biden has also dedicated financial resources for the purchase of medical equipment and vaccines for U.S citizens.

Part 2: Agenda Comparison Grid Analysis

Using the information you recorded in Part 1: Agenda Comparison Grid, complete the following to document information about the population health/healthcare issue you selected….Please click the icon below to purchase full answer at only $15