They exploited the opportunities created by relaxing those standards and eventually brought about exactly the kinds of fiascos that previous laws governing the relationships among and between investment firms, insurers, and savings banks were intended to prevent (Ehrenreich, 2009). The same is true in the case of health care lobbyists and their influence over government policies. Since the historic 2010 Supreme Court decision granting free speech rights to corporations, the wealthy have become more politically powerful than ever before.
4. At least 100 words - Identify three uses or lessons that can be learned from policy analysis and include an example of each use.
Policy analysis can identify areas of fiscal waste and corresponding opportunities to reduce waste of public resources. For example, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) identified certain types of urinary tract infections in hospitals that were caused primarily by poor care delivery, it used that data to change CMS reimbursement policy for those types of infections to create a monetary incentive for hospitals to reduce them (Reid, 2009). Policy analysis can help identify weaknesses in current...
Policy analysis can be used to determine the optimal use of public funds where countervailing concerns require a choice between different policies and to identify the right policy to achieve specific strategic objectives. The infamous "containment" policy implemented by the U.S. throughout the Cold War with respect to the former Soviet Union and other Communist states would be an example (Goldfield, Abbot, Argersinger, & Argersinger, 2005).
Sources Consulted
Edwards, G., Wattenberg, M., and Lineberry, R. (2009). Government in America: People,
Politics, and Policy. New York, NY: Longman.
Ehrenreich, B. (2009). Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting by in America. New York,
NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Goldfield, D., Abbot, C., Argersinger, J., and Argersinger, P. (2005). Twentieth-Century
America: A Social and Political History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-
Prentice Hall.
Reid, T. (2009). The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health
Care. New York: Penguin Books.
