ANALYZE THE ETHICAL AND LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS OF THE POLICY

This tension also exists in the allocation of scarce resources, from providing adequate staff coverage to making decisions about the amount of health care to provide. Given the nurse’s involvement in policy and health care delivery, it is important to understand the dynamics of this tension, as well as the legal and ethical implications.

To prepare:

When have you encountered a tension between the individual right and the collective good in your nursing practice?
With information from the Learning Resources in mind, consider relatively recent examples of health care policy that demonstrate this tension. For this Discussion, select one example of timely health care policy that allows you to evaluate the tension between individual rights and the collective good. Conduct additional research as necessary using credible websites and the Walden Library.

Post a cohesive response that addresses the following:

In the first line of your posting, identify a health care policy.
Explain the tension between individual rights and the collective good.

Required Readings

Bodenheimer, T., & Grumbach, K. (2016). Understanding health policy: A clinical approach (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Medical.

Chapter 13, “Medical Ethics and Rationing of Health Care”

This chapter discusses the four principles of medical ethics—beneficence, malfeasance, autonomy, and justice, and views current health care conditions through these lenses. Distributive justice, allocation of limited health care resources, rationing, and the ethics of health care financing are also examined.

Bae, S., & Brewer, C. (2010). Mandatory overtime regulations and nurse overtime. Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice, 11(2), 99–107.

The authors examine the effect of government regulations on health care issues by studying nurse overtime. They discovered that states with mandatory overtime regulations had higher total RN work hours.

Blum, J. D., & Talib, N. (2006). Balancing individual rights versus collective good in public health enforcement. Medicine & Law, 25(2), 273–281.

This article examines the balance of public good and individual liberty through the examples of policies regarding communicable disease and childhood immunization. The impact of the U.S. Supreme Court Case, Jacobson v. Massachusettson health care policy is discussed.

Pauly, B. (2008). Harm reduction through a social justice lens. International Journal of Drug Policy, 19(1), 4–10.

The author discusses the ethical issue of marginalized groups, such as the homeless, and their barriers to health care. The philosophy of harm reduction and various social justice theories are examined as possible guides to a policy initiative.