Please complete THREE health policy prompts. Each assignment response should be minimum 300 words EACH (exclusive of headings, etc). Each should include at least 3 SCHOLARLY references.
Assignment 1:
Satel,
S., & Torrey, E. (Spring, 2016). Prescription for mental-health
policy. National Affairs, 27, 1–22.
The problem we have today is that the system is geared more
toward mental health than severe mental illness. In fact, the federal
government’s lead agency on mental health, the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, part of the Department of Health and Human
Services, has explicitly stated this as its goal. Rather than focusing on
reducing homelessness, hospitalization, or incarceration among people with
serious mental illness, it concentrates federal and state efforts on delivering
amorphous “behavioral health” to everyone else. This is profoundly misguided.
But it may not be surprising after a half-century of inept leadership, Medicaid’s
financial incentives gone awry, and clashing ideas about the nature of the
forces (psychological, biological, and social) that lead to psychopathology—and
that, in turn, point toward the best possible therapeutic strategies. Ours is a
problem-ridden system that could be markedly improved with strong political
leadership. We need a mental-illness system in which care for the sickest of
the sick is a priority. If the federal government intends to take mental
illness seriously, Congress and the next administration must be keenly
responsive to the most vulnerable patients.
“We
need a mental-illness system in which care for the sickest of the sick is a
priority.” For many of the sickest of the sick, the options we discussed in
class are often very bleak, including homelessness and imprisonment.
Provide
your reasoned opinions of what policies should be initiated to more effectively
deal with the “problem-ridden” system regarding the care of the most severely
mentally ill.
You must provide support
for what you are proposing. In your response, you should specifically include
your views on the passage above.
Assignment 2:
The
War on Drugs many believe began in the 1970s. Few could say we are winning this
war and many would say we are losing it. Provide your reasoned opinion
concerning what you believe would be effective policy measures in dealing with
the opioid epidemic.
Assignment 5:
Unfortunately,
COVID-19 has had a higher incidence and prevalence in communities where there
are greater concentrations of minority and poor populations. Unfortunately,
too, mortality from the disease was more likely in these populations.
We
still in this country have so many vulnerable populations who experience access
to care disparities as well as health outcome disparities.
What
policies would you seek to initiate that could perhaps better address these
disparities? Support your selections.
