Introduction
Public policy administration can be defined as “the implementation of government policies, based on the expert analysis and the resolution of specific issues that generally have far-reaching impact on the citizens who live under the government in question” (Stewart, 2007).
Public policy is mainly handled by the following groups. First, we have interests groups and they are “people who always bargain on behalf of the citizens” (Cochran & Mayer, 2011). For example they can pressurize for the implementation of the public interests. Secondly, we have politicians. This group of individuals is mainly preoccupied with the role of ensuring that the government operates within the country’s constitution and also implements its policies within the accepted framework (Stewart, 2007).
The third group is the citizens and they mainly participate in public administration through voting. The public vote is very important because it is one of the key mechanisms that are used in choosing the public leaders. The constituents can channel their interests to the government through their representatives.
Public policy is meant to improve the leaving conditions of the citizens and at the same time it is meant to ensure that the government bureaucracy is well maintained. In this case the policy stakeholders ensure that both the government and public interests are fulfilled.
Healthcare inequalities
People have always been discriminated in social economic and political circles. For example there many inequalities when it comes to access to medical and healthcare services. Healthcare inequality can be defined “as the disparities in the access to adequate healthcare between different gender, race, and socioeconomic groups” (Dolgoff, 2008).
Healthcare inequalities are more common in countries which are poor and still develop as compared to the industrialized nations. However, healthcare inequalities have also been experienced in developed countries like USA (Dolgoff, 2008).
There are three examples of healthcare inequalities in USA and they include the following. Socioeconomic constrains always hinder people from getting proper healthcare. For example the poor people in USA cannot take health insurance covers to cater for their medical bills. Most of the poor people do odd jobs which do not offer medical allowances.
They are also not much aware of their healthcare needs due to their poor education backgrounds. The rich people on the other hand have enough money to spend on healthcare and in most cases they do well paying jobs that provide incentives such as family health insurance cover.
Health inequalities are also based on race. For instance in USA the provision of healthcare is still dictated by ones race. People from minority groups always get the worst medical attention and they do not have substantial health insurance covers compared to the whites who have well developed healthcare facilities and more insurance covers.
The last category of healthcare inequality is gender based. Men in USA have less access to health care compared to women. Women are also perceived to be more conscious about their health status. This makes them struggle to have medical insurance programs than men do. Medical care is also generally expensive due to lack of enough government support (Cochran & Mayer, 2011).
Conclusion
For the status of the American citizens to be uplifted it is important for the USA government to design policies that can boost the job market so that people can have enough resources to sustain themselves. The citizens as one of the interests groups should also be given an opportunity to fully participate in the process of making and implementation of the public policies (Dolgoff, 2008).
References
Cochran, C., & Mayer, L. (2011). American public policy; an introduction. Boston: Wadsworth.
Dolgoff, R. (2008). Understanding social welfare: a search for social justice. New York: Allyn and Bacon.
Stewart, J. (2007). Public policy: a revolutinary approach. Boston: Wadsworth.