Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

Value: 100 points

Due: In an effort to facilitate scholarly discourse, create your initial post by Day 4, and reply to at least two of your classmates, on two separate days, by Day 7.

Note: In this type of discussion, you will not see the responses of your classmates until after you have posted your own response to the question below.

Introduction

Assume you have the ability to select one major “new” health policy for implementation. Select a topic from those presented in this week’s readings.

Initial Post

Using 500 to 750 words, address the following:

• Describe your topic and why you chose it.
• What is the expected impact of your topic on population health within the next five years?

Cite additional sources beyond the Learning Materials for this week.

Replies

Reply to at least two of your classmates. In your reply posts, select two peers’ posts that address a policy other than the one you chose. In 200 to 400 words, explain how you think their policy will impact access to care and costs. You should cite at least one to two sources that add new information in response to your classmate’s post.

Please refer to the for details on how this activity will be graded.

Posting to the Discussion Forum

1. Select the appropriate Thread.
2. Select Reply.
3. Create your post.
4. Select Post to Forum.

The next big issue that must be faced sooner rather than later is the cost of health care for undocumented immigrants. This has been a highly debated issue. On one side, everyone deserves to have access to life-saving treatment. On the other hand, it is not fair to expect the American people who work hard for their money to pay for the expenses of others. I chose this topic because I personally am on the fence about this topic. I can see both sides of the argument, but know that this situation cannot continue to be left as is. So, the US government must find a way to please both sides or at least the option that promotes the best outcome for the greatest amount of people.

In a report completed in 2019, the estimated amount of undocumented immigrants is 4.9 million. To insure one hundred percent of these individuals would cost the US nearly $23 billion dollars annually at $4,600 per person. A more realistic cost is $10.4 billion annually based on a more likely number of people who would enroll (Camarota et al., 2019). On top of all the stimulus checks and COVID relief missions for free vaccines and testing, the US would now need to find an extra $10 billion to dish out for immigrant health care. In a perfect world, everyone would have access to health care without any barriers, however, there are real obstacles to get around in order to accomplish anything even close to that perfect world. In order to achieve such a tall feat, we would need to reallocate funds from other areas of federal spending.

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act was born and this act barred all undocumented immigrants from all types of government-funded care such as Medicare and Medicaid. For this reason, state and local governments have taken the responsibility on themselves to fund the care of undocumented pregnant women and children (Viladrich, 2019). It cannot be left up to individual states to figure out how to finance these costs, the ACA needs to be updated to include these individuals. Especially since some states tend to have more undocumented people than others. In 1986 it was made a law that every patient seeking help in an emergency department would be cared for until stable (Viladrich, 2019). Hospitals cannot simply turn people away and then must find out how to indemnify the cost of supplies and time.

The next step that the government needs to take is to figure out how to properly allocate funds to accommodate more people to receive proper health care coverage. At the same time, this new policy must not overly interfere with the incomes of the American working force. In the next five years, the ACA should at least have its own policy about funding for pregnant women and children, without leaving that responsibility up to individual states. Once that is complete, the next step would be to insure the elderly and then the entire family.

References:

Camarota, S., Zeigler, K., & Richwine, J. (2019). How Much Would It Cost to Provide Health Insurance to Illegal Immigrants? Center for Immigration Studies, 1–15.

Viladrich, A. (2019). “We Cannot Let Them Die”: Undocumented Immigrants and Media Framing of Health Deservingness in the United States. Qualitative Health Research, 29(10), 1447–1460. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732319830426

Graduate Program in Health Administration Discussion Question Rubric

Note: The value of each of the criterion on this rubric represents a point range (example: 25–20 points, 20–15 points, 15–10 points, 10–0 points).