Advocacy role paper

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The Issue President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, of 2010 that changed United States healthcare delivery system by making access to healthcare affordable for all Americans. The PPACA requires Americans to have health insurance coverage with the exception to financial hardship, religious objections and American Indians. The health reform will also expand Medicaid and will include the Children’s Health Insurance program (CHIP), also known as (SCHIP) the State Children’s Insurance Program. In 2009, the number of children without insurance was 7.5 million (Estes, Chapman, Dodd, Hollister & Harrington, 2013).The uninsured children varied by factors such as poverty status, age, race, and the Hispanic origin. The uninsured percentages of children by race were the following: 7.0% for white children, 11.5% for black children, 10.0% for Asian children and 16.8 % for Hispanic children. These percentages show that Hispanic children are most likely to be uninsured due to the lack of knowledge about certain programs available that offer health insurance coverage. The problem is that there are still many children that go without insurance coverage due to several barriers such as the lack of access, lack of education and lack of affordable healthcare for All Americans. According to Brach (2003), SCHIP began in 1997 due to the number of children without health insurance that resulted to poor health conditions. Low income families that made too much money to qualify for Medicaid and had no access to affordable health insurance through their employers was the reason that the congress brought about this insurance program for children. States were given full autonomy in designing their own CHIP programs. ... ... middle of paper ... ...te with federal and state changes made to the policies on CHIP. I would lobby for policy changes that would improve children’s health insurance programs. I also would advocate by being an active member in the state nursing organizations to demand the reimbursements of all Nurse Practitioners as primary care providers. Nurse Practitioners are more cost effective and a way to provide more affordable healthcare. Nurse Practitioners have limitations to their scope of practice, however, this limits healthcare to the needy and vulnerable populations. Another way that I could advocate the CHIP is by educating all of my patients on the importance of preventative care. As a nurse, I could provide families with calendars that have immunization shot dates recorded to reduce missed appointments. I can also call patient’s families to give reminders about upcoming appointments.

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