Response to Research from Peer
Topic: Describe a public issue and how it has evolved through the public issues life cycle.
Public Issues Life Cycle
The Affordable Care Act
BMAL 560 Discussion Post 1
Corey Booth
Liberty University
Public Issues Life Cycle
A public issue is any issue, usually broad and encompassing, that collectively generates concern for an organization and any number of its stakeholders (Lawrence & Weber, 2017). The current healthcare law legally titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is more commonly referred to as Obamacare is undeniably a public issue. For the foreseeable future, it is an issue that has a life cycle tied to the political party that occupies the White House. Therefore, the management process is currently on either a 4 or 8-year cycle depending upon election results. Regardless of which political party is in the majority, the issue facing our nation over healthcare and how to provide for it will still have the same obstacles facing the American public (Stakeholders in this case), that needs to be solved.
Performance Expectations Gap
The emergence over the last few years of legislation that has required Americans to purchase health insurance has driven the expectations of consumers in an upward trajectory. Setting performance expectations on this issue is mostly political unfortunately. Consequently, the gap in performance is judged through a political lens rather than through the lens of the overall public health of our citizens. Performance Expectations Gap can be defined as the difference in stakeholder (citizen) concerns versus what the organization accomplishes. The larger the gap in performance, the greater the backlash from the adversely affected citizens Fischer, K. (n.d.). In the first attempt at requiring healthcare coverage for every American the expectation was set that the nearly 30 million uninsured Americans would receive coverage. However the first year only saw an enrollment number of approximately 9 million which included Americans that were moved from a pre-ACA plan to a compliant ACA plan (Kowalski, 2014). By 2016 these enrollment numbers had risen to 12.1 million Americans (Blumberg & Holahan, 2016). The expectation was for 30 million Americans to be covered for healthcare but the latest verifiable data shows that only about half of those intended to be covered are actually covered. This has created a performance expectations gap for the PPACA.
Stakeholder Engagement
No organization can purposefully plan nor survive without being attentive to its stakeholders and responding to their legitimate needs and concerns. Stakeholders are constituents with a vested interest in the affairs and actions of the organization. They are individuals, groups, or organizations affected by the organization and who may seek to influence it (Rakich, & Feit, 2001). Therefore, going forward, the leadership of the United States (our organization) must be attentive to what works in the healthcare industry if they wish to keep citizens interested in the overall goal of having a healthier society. As stated earlier this is complicated by politics which generally skews the actual needs of the constituents negatively when compared to the needs of the current elected majority. As engaged stakeholders if the goal is a healthier society then stakeholders must demand that leadership address the concerns of those affected citizens.
Conclusion. Healthcare in the United States has been a public issue for quite some time. It was addressed through legislation in 2010 in the form of the PPACA and has become a political issue since the notion was first presented to Congress. Unfortunately, it is clouded by political affiliations which skews the opinions of many Americans based on their political viewpoint. Having a healthier society shouldn’t be a political football and as a health insurance Agent I deal with this reality daily. Having affordable access to healthcare should be available to all Americans who wish to monitor their health and well-being. Trying to legislate behavior though has proven to be difficult and doesn’t seem to be a successful path to reaching the goal. Just as Prohibition, for example, in the early 20th century didn’t end alcohol consumption in America, the PPACA for many Americans didn’t allow access to affordable healthcare. If the public issue is to have a healthier society the stakeholders of our organization must insist the politics of the issue be removed and the performance gap be closed between what the goal is and what the actual results show.
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