Assignments
Policy Analysis Exercise: the goals of this assignment are for students to 1. learn how to navigate the federal or state legislative websites to identify health related bills, 2. learn and practice the process of policy analysis (as modeled by Dunn in: Public policy. An introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1981).
Policy analysis is the process of engaging in argumentation and debate to create, assess, and communicate plausibly true beliefs about certain policies. Knowledge claims are created and communicated to present these beliefs and to convince others that the information provided is sufficient and necessary to justify the proposed action called for in the policy claim.
The structural model of the argument can help you to see the various and competing beliefs and messages that have gone into creating the policy claim.
Policies have 5 elements: information (I), claim (C), warrant (W), backing (B), and rebuttal (R).
Students will pick a bill either at the federal level: (Congress (Links to an external site.)) or your state legislature (for NJ: NJ legislature (Links to an external site.)). Analyze the problem that is being addressed by answering the following questions:
What is the problem and is it a state or federal level problem?
Who are the stakeholders?
What is the policy environment?
Who will benefit by addressing the problem, and who will pay a cost?
What action is being proposed by the legislation?
Has any similar legislation been enacted before, or has this issue been addressed in the past with differing consequences?
What are your assumptions of the expected outcome and how can the results be evaluated?
See this diagram of policy analysis:Diagraming a policy argument-1.docx
Here is an example of a well done paper, note it is using APA 6th edition, there are changes you should know in the 7th edition: exemplar-1.docx
Global Health: present this information in your discussion post
The economics of health care globally: For this week you will post on the health care system of another country (not the US). Please do your best to pick a different country (you can post early to lay claim to your country, then follow up when you have the information)
For your country please describe:
How is health care paid for i.e. government funded, private insurance, combination of these
Who is covered through the governments health care plan if there is one? For example all citizens, only those who are employed, etc.
What is covered preventive care, all necessary care
Are there enough providers? Are nurse practitioners utilized for primary care?
Are there any problems if so what are they?
How did they handle COVID – good or bad
Pros and cons (from your point of view) and compared to our US system
Here is a great site to help you get started: International Health Care (Links to an external site.)
Policy brief: students will develop a policy brief based on an identified problem in the US health care system. They will provide the information, claim, warrant, backing and rebuttal based on the Dunn model of policy analysis.
The goal of this assignment is for students to 1. learn how to write academically rigorous, persuasive papers about a specific real-world issue; 2. learn how to choose and craft a documents content based on the needs of a particular audience [rather than for a general readership] and in a non-academic framework; 3. prepare students to anticipate the assumptions and concerns of their targeted readership; and 4. enable students to create original work that synthesizes their research into a succinctly written document advocating change or a specific course of action (excerpted from: ; Pennock, Andrew. The Case for Using Policy Writing in Undergraduate Political Science Courses. PS: Political Science and Politics 44 (January 2011): 141-146.)
Students will develop a brief based on their proposed solution to an identified problem. The policy brief will identify the Policy Issue, Background related to the Issue, Information pertinent to the Issue (this may include current law, debate about the issue, data about the issue), Policy Options, Your Recommendation for Policy, and References.
Title
Executive Summary (abstract)
Statement of the Issue/Problem: Brief (2-3 sentence) statement describing the issue. What is the problem that this policy brief addresses?
Background: An explanation of the problem and its significance. Include support as needed, including references to research literature if relevant
Information Pertinent to the Issue: This may pertain to current laws needing to be changed, current debate about the issue, and/or data about the issue
Responses and Policy options: What has been done (or proposed) about the issue so far? Have other states/organizations addressed it? Are there any pending legislative or regulatory proposals? (include support as needed)
Recommendations: List recommendations about what different actors should doe.g., Congre
