Policy Formulation: Development of Legislation
Supporting Lectures:
Review the following lecture:
- Policy Formulation: Development of Legislation (see below)
Legislative Process for Health Policy
While hundreds of bills are introduced during each congressional session, only a very small percentage moves on to be evaluated by the President. Understanding the legislative process for health policy is important for administrators, who are in a position to lobby for effective health policy.
From the Internet, review the following:
- U.S. Congress. (n.d.). Health. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/subjects/health/6130
Choose a healthy policy item that has been “Introduced” and present the following:
- **Title of the bill
- **Status and sponsor
- **Summary
- **Recommended revisions
To support your work, use your course and textbook readings and also use the South University Online Library. As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.
Policy Formulation: Development of Legislation
The steps in the legislation process are numerous so as to include a system of checks and balances that prevent the enactment of bills that do not contain full support from the political arena representing the people. Bills are drafted by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The process is relatively independent at this time and the bill moves forward to presentation, committee assessment, and approval from each side. Once the bill is approved by the House or Senate, it must be approved by the other side; that is, the bill passed by the House must be sent to the Senate for review and approval and vice versa. Conference committees are created to resolve differences until an identical bill is passed by both, the House and Senate. At this stage, the bill is forwarded to the President, who has one of four options:
- The president may sign the bill into law.
- The president may, during congressional session, ignore the bill, which automatically becomes law after 10 days without signature.
- The president may, when congress is out of session, hold the bill, which cannot become law without presidential signature.
- The president may veto the bill, which requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate to override.
It is important to note that the development of legislation follows this process whether the legislation is new law or an amendment to an existing law. Any proposals that are not enacted by the end of a congressional session must be reintroduced during the next session, starting the process over for each piece of legislation that does not evoke majority agreement. As such, only a small percentage of proposed legislation culminates in the enactment of law.
