Nursing Agenda for Health Care Reform

In Healthy People 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expresses the hope that the year 2000 will see fewer deaths than today, as well as an overall improvement in the health and well-being of the nation's people. It is interesting to note that the World Health Organization has established similar goals for the year 2000 (Styles, 1990, p. 347). However, although the text of Healthy People 2000 is useful as a guideline to possible changes in the future, other predictors take into account factors that this document seems to miss. For example, Coile (1990) has pointed out that the advent of high technology in medicine is an important factor which will affect the future evolution of the health care system as a whole.

Healthy People 2000 is concerned with national objectives in its effort to make all Americans healthy by the end of the century. Because of this perspective, it would seem that the authors of the report might favor national policies for future improvement in health care

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alth Care Reform seeks a shift from the current emphasis on "sickness" in health care to an outlook which emphasizes the eventual "wellness" of the medical consumer. According to the document, the process of reforming health care in America may even require a complete restructuring of the system as it currently exists. Although it is true that reforms are needed in the health care system, it is unlikely that any radical restructuring will be required. The need for health care reform is reflected in articles by such writers as Halamandaris (1990), who claims that the current system is "expensive and woefully inefficient" (p. 11). Harrington (1990) has also called for drastic changes in terms of the nation's health care system. According to Harrington, nurses play a particularly vital role in the struggle toward the attainment of "universal access, broad benefits, and cost effectiveness" (p. 228). Styles (1990) has indicated that the need for reform is apparent in such factors as the lack of health insurance among Americans, and the high rate of infant mortality which currently exists in the United States (p. 347). Styles further points out that it is ironic that the percentage of America's gross national product which is s
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Approximate Word count = 1258
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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