Discussion:
There are two basic categories of health policies and they are allocative and regulatory policies. The allocative policies are policies that provide the net benefits for distinct groups or a class of individuals or organizations at the expense of others, so the public objectives are being met. These policies are subsidies that are for policymakers that alter demands of supplies of products and services or to guarantee that certain people can have access to them. Some other subsidies are to be used to ensure that certain individuals can access health services (Beaufort B. Longest, 2016). The ACA is an example of this subsidization by having a health insurance coverage for millions of people. Medicare and Medicaid programs are two massive allocative policies that are available to those who need them, and these expenditures are expected to drastically rise by the year 2023 with Medicare expenditures to be more than $1 trillion and Medicaid to surpass $918 billion because of the rise in health services and treatments and because of the continuous rise in technology and medical advancements. Some other examples of allocative policies are federal funding to support the access for health services to the Native Americans, veterans, and migrant farmers. State funding for mental institutions is also another example (Beaufort B. Longest, 2016).
The second policy is regulatory policies and these policies are designed to influence the actions, behaviors, and decisions of others. Just like the allocative policies, the government establishes these policies, so they can ensure that the objectives of the public are being met (Beaufort B. Longest, 2016). There are five categories that fall under the regulator policies and they are; market-entry restrictions, rate- or price-setting controls on health services providers, quality controls on the provision of health services, market-preserving controls, and social regulation. The first four are the variations of economic regulations and the last is to achieve socially desired ends to be safe workplaces, reduction of negative externalities that are associated with consumption or production of the products and services, and the nondiscriminatory provision of health services. Good examples of regulation are the Antitrust laws like the Sherman Antitrust Act, Robinson-Patman Act and the Clayton Act. These were all intended to maintain the conditions that allow markets to work fairly and well (Beaufort B. Longest, 2016).
The main purpose of the health policies is to enhance the health or facilitate the pursuit. Health policies affect health by intervening a set of variables that are known as health determinants and these are what affects health directly in many ways by affecting the physical environments that people work and live in, biology, behavioral choices, social factors, economic circumstances, availability of social networks, and the availability of and the access to health services (Beaufort B. Longest, 2016).