Administrative Law

How Extensive is Administrative Law in Public Health, and How does it Work?

How Extensive is Administrative Law in Public Health, and How does it Work?

Introduction

There are two major approaches to the protection of public health. The first and older one use regulatory enforcement programs that range from epidemiological controls and protection against unwholesome living conditions to the identification and removal of poisons in the environment. Included are protection of the food and water supplies and protection against hazards and poisons in the workplace. Programs to protect the public against hazards from the generation of nuclear energy and efforts to prevent the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer by the dissemination of hydrofluorocarbons and other poisonous gases are included in this area. Although public health regulation and enforcement have grown enormously, that expansion has been exceeded by the following area of public health protection: public health services. The government provides services to advance the health of the public, including the provision of well-baby clinics, family-planning clinics, community mental health programs, and government-sponsored research institutions that provide specific services. This paper discusses how extensive is administrative law in public health, and how it works.

Discussion

Both regulatory enforcement programs and service programs must meet constitutional requirements. In general, equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment specifies that the same degree of fairness apply in the provisions of benefits and services as applies in the imposition of obligations and duties. As a result, government agencies carefully consider allocation factors in the distribution of services to determine how priorities should be set between public health and other needs and determine the priority of certain health-related needs. Finally, institutions must determine specific allocations among individuals with differing health and other needs (Rawls). Political considerations such as pressure from physicians and other service providers or consumers also have an effect on the process. (Trust for America's Health, 2009)

Government involvement is dominant in these programs; because the government reimburses medical providers for services rendered, it is directly involved in regulating the quality of those services. Medicaid may be viewed as a welfare program that takes the place of earlier provision of care for the insolvent through charitable or public institutions. Medicare, based on contractual entitlements, was created with the expectation that employees would die soon after reaching the retirement age of sixty-five. However, the increasing longevity of the covered population and the substantial increase in the cost of health services have led to persistent public criticism. Such programs are not novel. (Gebbie, ...