Policy Memorandum Is Always a Rewarding Experience

¶ … policy memorandum is always a rewarding experience for all, because it encourages teamwork and helps team members practice their analytical, creative, and critical thinking skills. We also learn how to communicate our ideas in fresh but succinct ways when we create a policy memo related to an important subject. In this case, the subject is Chapter 8: Healthcare: Attempting a Rational-Comprehensive Transformation. The opening paragraph of the chapter introduces the subject of healthcare reform, especially related to the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, commonly known as "Obamacare." Then, we learn about leading causes of death in order to determine what the role or goal of health care is in the United States. The great irony is that the United States has the most advanced health care technologies, but some of the worst health outcomes vs. other wealthy, developed nations. Therefore, it is extremely rewarding to write a policy memorandum for this chapter as this chapter describes one of the most important issues in our society.

Policy memos are "not like other academic papers" and they should "inform the audience in concise, organized" manners ("Policy Memo," n.d.). Cost is one of the issues that we would be discussing in the policy memorandum. As the text points out, prices of pharmaceuticals are inflated because drug companies build into the price of drugs the cost of advertising and promotions. Writing a policy memo will help many of us who are angry about this situation to articulate our thoughts, using facts instead of relying solely on emotions. It helps to have the statistics laid out, so that policies for change can be drafted.

There are several different rational strategies for providing universal health care, which is why health care coverage proves to be a controversial political matter. Writing a policy memorandum will help our group come up with consensus ideas that help all people. However, some people actually do not agree that health care is a right, and believe that the free market should determine who has access to the best quality of care at any given time. Medicare and Medicaid seem to be the only clear-cut areas in which people believe that seniors should at least be able to access their medical services and drugs at a low cost. Framing Medicare and Medicaid as both welfare and government insurance are helpful in this chapter.

Writing a policy memo regarding this chapter is a rewarding experience because it will allow us to think of creative solutions to the problem. The managed care programs do not work, and there is wide consensus that these are problematic from the perspective of restricting patient choice. Other problems such as the cost of pharmaceuticals and the pre-existing conditions clauses encourage us to write clearly in the policy memo. A single-payer option such as what other sensible countries have would be the ultimate grounding for our policy memo.