Regulatory and Allocative Health Policies and the Health Determinants

Health Care Policy Paper
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Health policy comprises regulations and principles that promote and guide population or individual wellbeing and health. All healthcare policies, including implementation decisions, judicial decisions, regulations, rules, or laws, can be classified into distinct approaches. The nature of the sector's shortcomings and issues directly influences the medical policies tailored to alleviate or address them. Based on their fundamental rationales, health policies can be broadly categorized into regulatory and allocative, although there is considerable potential for the similarity between the categories. The policies are designed with the best interest of the general population at heart. Health policies are tailored to ensure the achievement of health goals and the protection of different groups' health and wellbeing to guarantee positive health outcomes. This paper evaluates the difference between regulatory and allocative health policies, delineates health determinants, and how health policies and health determinants interact to influence health policy drivers.
Difference between Regulatory and Allocative Health Policies
Regulatory policies are tailored to influence the behaviors, decisions, and actions of groups of people to promote public goals and objectives. The government uses sanctions such as fines against those who break the prescribed laws to ensure compliance with the designated regulations. Regulatory rules are categorized into five distinct health guidelines: market-entry restrictions, price-setting controls on health service providers, quality controls on health services' provision, industry-preserving controls, and social regulation (Chapter 1: Health and Health Policy). Market entry limitations comprise licensing of healthcare providers and organizations offering medical services. Quality-control rules ensure all healthcare practitioners uphold optimal quality thresholds for services delivered. Market-preserving controls are regulations designed by the government to maintain conditions that allow markets to operate well. Price-setting rules are formulated to regulate the rate at which government reimburses finance to hospitals to provide quality healthcare to insured patients (Chapter 1: Health and Health Policy).
On the contrary, allocative policies offer net benefits to different classes or groups of individuals or entities at the expense of others to fulfill shared goals and objectives. Allocative policies are primarily subsidies by which policymakers seek to change the supply or demand for specific products and services, such as immunization, to guarantee access to vulnerable populations. This may also include the government subsidizing the construction of healthcare facilities based on the premise that markets would undersupply the facilities in low-income or sparsely populated areas. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and related Medicare programs are key examples of the government's allocative policies to ensure universal health for every citizen, including immigrants, through subsidies (Chapter 1: Health and Health Policy). Therefore, it can be derived that the major difference between allocative and regulatory health policies is anchored on emphasis on resources and behaviors.
What Are the Determinants of Health?
Health determinants are factors that influence wellbeing outcomes at individual or population levels. Health determinants include safe and stable housing, food and nutrition, transportation, social and econ...