Online Discussion

The focus of this discussion board is for you to gain a better understanding of how social, ethical, and economic issues can affect health policy. In this assignment, you will have the opportunity to think about a practice issue that is of concern to you and then put together a plan for how you might get this issue addressed by a local politician.

Please watch this short video outlining how to upload a recording in the discussion board. You can click on the link and open it in a new tab, or click on the video and then expand it. Closed Caption is available.

How to post an audio or video recording in the discussion (Links to an external site.)

If you have difficulty uploading your video, students have reported needing to clear out their internet cache and that once they cleared it, they were able to upload the video. If you try this and still have difficulty, the IT department is very helpful as well.

Although you will be utilizing websites for information to answer the questions, you do still need to follow the rubric related to resources–incorporation of your text, another provided resource from the lecture materials, and a peer-reviewed journal article that you find in the literature. The lecture materials provide a great foundation to understanding bills, your legislators, advocating, etc. that you can incorporate into your questions. As an example, you might use your resources when providing the rationale of why you chose the legislator to contact.

You will need an in-text citation to support your discussion for questions 1, 2, & 3; however, an intext citation is not needed for your recording (question 4). Just as for your letter assignment, you can state a resource, such as “According to the CDC, …” However, there are not intext citations or resources in the reference list for the recording.

Please let your instructor or I know if you have any questions.

Discussion Board Items—Refer to Discussion Board Guidelines and Grading Rubric as you complete these items. (The expectations are outlined in the syllabus and Module 0)

1. Identify your legislators for the state and national level. Please include the name of your state, district numbers for both your state level representatives and senators, as well as those on the national level. To respond to this item, you will have two US senators, one US Congressman, one state senator and one state representative.
2. Identify one contemporary health care issue. Go to gov, (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., click Legislation at the very top, then check the current Congress on the left margin. Or you can look at your state level legislative site to search for current bills. Look for bills that are related to your practice issue. Choose the bill that you will use for your Letter to Legislator Assignment. Outline the components of the bill.
3. Choose one of your representatives as you identified in question. Go to either your state website or back to Congress.gov and see which committees your legislator is on and/or what their policy interests are—this is helpful in choosing which legislator to approach for assistance. Be specific and share what committees he/she is on and/or their policy interests…not all of them, but the ones that relate to your rationale. Explain why you chose the legislator to contact for your chosen bill.
4. Record a short audio recording or video (3 minutes or less) of how you would discuss your health care issue and bill if you had the opportunity to meet with your legislator. Include the following information:
   1. Introduce yourself—name, nurse, constituent.
   2. Briefly discuss the health care issue, bill, and outline the social, ethical, and economic impact of the issue related to health policy.
   3. Request support or opposition of the bill.

This DB will be useful to you as you complete your Letter to a Legislator assignment.