Question

What is health policy? How can health policies be used as regulatory or allocative tools?

Answer 1

Health policy refers to the decision ,plans or the actions that we used to achieve the goals in the health care system .for example

-- policies for prohibiting tobacco or alcohol use in work place

--policies for serving healthy food at any meeting or event

__policies for allowing time for exercise and to participate in health programmes.

Health policies can be used as both regulatory and allocative tools.

Regulatory policies are directed by the government to control the behaviour of a particular group of people,an example is the accreditation process _it helps the hospital's or others to follow the various organization to make sure the standards are met.

Allocative health policies provide one group of people with money or power by taking it from somewhere else .This involves the the income ,service and goods with in the society.

The allocative tool may be Redistributive or Distributive in today health care setting.

Distributive policies spread the benefits throughout the society and include development of medical personnel,findings for medical research and construction and initiative of institutions.

Redistributive policies provide the benefits only for certain groups of people by taking money from one group and using it for the benefits of others .an example is Medicard _ it involve taking taxes from the public to provide free health care to people who are unable to afford it .