Question Description
Please respond to the discussion and respond to the peer discussions
DQ1
Choose one legislator on the state or federal level who is also a nurse, and discuss the importance of their role as advocate for improving health care delivery. What specific bill(s) have they sponsored or supported that has/have influenced health care?
DQ2
Discuss how the CMS reimbursement rules for never events required a shift in the patient care delivery model in inpatient facilities.
Peer DQ1
Erin Murphy has been a nurse since 1984 and has served five terms in the House of Representatives for the state of Minnesota. She has spent much of her career working to ensure people have access to health care. Prior to being elected into public office, she worked as the executive director of the Minnesota Nurses’ Association, where she was successful in passing MinnesotaCare, which is a health insurance program for workers with low-to-moderate income that are not able to purchase private insurance (Szulecki, 2017).
Nursing has allowed Erin to be a better advocate for health. In order to pass MinnesotaCare, she understood the impact nurses play an important role in patient health and organized multiple nurses to testify in support of the program (Szulecki, 2017).
Upon election into public office, she authored Health Care Homes, a legislative policy that expanded access to care that was affordable. The policy was enacted in 2008. This policy is based on a medical home model that links primary care to wellness and prevention as well as self-management and community services. It is aimed to assist the chronically ill and others with complex conditions (Szulecki, 2017).
Other issues she has worked on during her service include: women’s health, affordable childcare, greater health care access for employees of schools, etc. Her current work includes a bill that would establish a public health insurance option for all Minnesota residents, and she is also campaigning for governor (Szulecki, 2017).
Being a nurse has offered Erin Murphy a unique perspective on health care. She has witnessed first-hand the challenges that patients experience to gain access to and utilize coverage. She also cared for her mother, who had small cell lung cancer. She observed how her mother, who had quality health insurance, still had to fight with insurance companies to gain access to the care that she needed. All of this experience has contributed to her work, and she also actively tries to recruit nurses to work in public office (Szulecki, 2017).
Szulecki, D. (2017). Nurse in the legislature. American Journal of Nursing, 117(4): 68-69. doi: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515241.67042.09
Peer DQ2
Nurses play an important role in the health care setting as they
make up almost 3 million workers within the healthcare setting making them a predominant
figure in the health care setting. Their influence is not always within a
hospital or medical setting but it can also be at a legislative level
considering some nurses make their way to positions as legislators at the state
or federal level.
Congresswoman Diane Black is an example of a federal
legislator for the Tennessee’s 6th district. She was originally a
nurse and has over 40 years of experience working in the health care field
which has helped her to have the knowledge needed as a congresswoman to help
reform and change issues with our current health care environment
(Black.House.gov, 2018). For example, in 2011 Congresswoman Black had
legislation sign into a law a repeal to Obamacare which saved taxpayers $13
billion (Black.House.gov, 2018). Her specific health care knowledge gives her
insight into what people face when they are seeking medical care and what
changes should be made to help them at the congressional level.
Black.House.gov. (2018). About U.S. Congressman Diane Black.
Retrieved from: https://black.house.gov/about
Peer DQ3
Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas is an experienced politician and nurse. She has over 23 years serving in congress and 60 years as a nurse. Most off her nursing career was spent working within the Veterans Affairs. She was appointed chief psychiatric nurse and then was appointed director of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While working at the VA she noticed how horrible and unproductive the conditions where and thought there had to have been a better way to provide care. She knew that there was no way she was going to be able to make any changes at the level she was at since everything was running from the top down. She knew she had to do more if she wanted to see any changes take place within the healthcare circuit she was working.
She worked closely with the Obama administration in support the Affordable Care Act, she supports Medicaid and Medicare. Also, she has authored and co-sponsored bills that support nurses, women, and families afflicted by mental health issues. There are really many other bills but her primary focus when it comes to health care are Medicare and Medicaid.
Reference:
Daniels, J. Z. (2015, July 1). Minority nurse. Retrieved September 3, 2018, from Minoritynurse.com website: https://minoritynurse.com/from-the-bedside-to-the-…
U.S. representative Eddie Bernice Johnson representing the 30th district of Texas. (n.d.). Retrieved September 3, 2018, from ebjohnson.house.gov website: https://ebjohnson.house.gov/issues/health-care
Peer DQ4
Rep. Karen Bass, APRN, D-Calif. In November 2016, Congresswoman Bass earned her fourth term representing California’s 33rd congressional district. Within the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congresswoman Bass serves as a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. She is also a member of the House Judiciary Committee and serves as the Congressional Black Caucus’ second vice chair for the 115th Congress. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi chose Congresswoman Bass to serve on the Steering and Policy Committee.
Congresswoman Bass is an advanced practice registered nurse, previously serving as a physician assistant, nurse and instructor at Keck School of Medicine of USC in Los Angeles.
As a former Physician Assistant, Karen saw firsthand how people in Los Angeles and across the country struggled to secure basic health care. High costs kept them from pursuing the care they needed and treatable conditions like hypertension and diabetes became much worse because they were not treated early.
It is because of her experience that Karen has been such a strident advocate for healthcare coverage for all Americans. In Congress, Karen is a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act because it has provided health insurance to over 46,000 of her constituents who did not have health coverage before the law and has cut the number of uninsured Californians in her Congressional district in half. That is one of the reasons why she has voted over 50 times against Republican attempts to repeal or undermine the law.
The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and it is ensuring that Americans’ health coverage is focused on patients and not insurance companies by allowing young adults to stay on their parent’s plan until they are 26 and stopping insurance companies from denying Americans coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. And because of the law insurance companies can no longer have life-time caps on coverage, meaning they cannot remove people from health insurance when they need it the most. Karen wants to expand and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and support the healthcare workers across the country who are benefitting from the law.
In California, Karen is making it a top priority to make sure that Angelenos are taking advantage of healthcare programs available to them. Karen has worked to provide funds to Los Angeles’ community clinics to hire and train outreach and enrollment workers to help Angelenos sign up for the new healthcare programs, and she continues to host healthcare resource fairs to connect residents to healthcare providers.
Reference
Health Care.(2015). Karen, Bass. Retrieved from http://www.karenbass.com/health_care
Peer DQ5
Erin Murphy is a representative for the state of Minnesota. She had worked in the medical field for years before pursing her role as a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association. She served for 14 years with the Minnesota Nurses Association where her passion during her tenure was to improve health care services. She was instrumental in the implementation of the Minnesota Care program that afforded low to moderate income families with health insurance coverage. She later pursued seat in the House of Representative where her passion again was to improve affordable health care coverage and care. Her personal experience with her mother’s illness was her inspiration to further improve health care coverage and care. She described the challenges that she faced while caring for her ill mother that despite the adequate healthcare coverage she often still had to fight the insurance company to get the needed care for her mother. She was instrumental again in reforming the health care coverage for the citizens in Minnesota and gave rise to the use of health care homes. She has continued to monitor its progress and has utilized its success in improved outcomes for individuals with chronic health conditions as well as the affordability and health care cost savings. She has also worked on other issues such as affordable childcare, women’s health, health care for school employees, and other infrastructure projects (Szulecki, 2017). Erin also promotes for nurses to take part in government offices as she stated,” that the fundamental nursing skills like listening and problem-solving translate well into politics. What’s special about what [nurses] do is that we have to act when we’re taking care of patients. We don’t get to say, ‘This is hard for me, I’m not going to do it.’ We are in a position to make the best decisions we can given the circumstances we face. And I think that is a skill and a value that we have walked away from in our political debate (Szulecki, 2017).” She has served five terms as a legislator and is now currently running for the government office of Minnesota. Her demeanor and dedication to service demonstrates the viability of the nursing profession.
Reference:
Szulecki, D., (2017). Nurse in the Legislature. American Journal of Nursing, Vol 117:4, p68-69. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515241.67042.09
Peer DQ6
Eddie Bernice Johnson is one of the state and federal legislators. Eddie Bernice Johnson is from the state of Texas and is on her 13th term serving as a congress representative and representing Texas’s 30th congressional district in the United States. Johnson has been advocating for the healthcare act and has helped in ensuring that a considerable number of Americans gain access to the necessary and needed care. Johnson in one instance participated in demonstrations in attempts to advocate for healthcare act following an attempt by the Republicans to have the act repealed (Act, F. I. R. S. T, 2014).
In addition, to that, she has sponsored a number of bills with the Veteran’s Medical Personnel Recruitment and Retention act of 2009 being one of them (Johnson, DeLauro, & Slaughter, 2015). This bill was raised for a numb er of reasons which included the need to streamline the payment system for better and ease of comprehension and use. More so, she had an objective of ensuring that there exist incentives for retired employees and as a consequent, motivated the other healthcare practitioners to deliver services to patients in the optimal approach conceivable. This led to increased staff retention and reduction of staff turn-over and resignation rates following the retirement benefit based encouragement. The bill was equally intended to aid in augmenting the education benefits for all new hired Veterinary Administrators as well as the currently working health care providers. The bill plays a crucial part in ensuring that the healthcare providers gain the propensity to learn on the trends in healthcare sector.
Further, the bill facilitated the delivery of clarifications on the Veterinary Administrators regulations regarding work schedule and overtime. The bill also eases the process of hiring and retaining nurses by the Veterinary Administrators.
References
