Health care policy goals toward the society are delivery and financing of health care services. Health policy generally clarifies the movements occupied by governments---local, state, and national---to improve the society's health. It is a policy that stays focus more on discussing the health needs on majority of the population. The United States of America is the foremost spender on health care than any other country on earth (policy almanac, 2010). For a number of years, health care expenditures grew at a far more rapid rate than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), using majority of the country‘s capitals. The cost of health care and the determination to control the intensification in spending is a major conflict. The upsurge in cost and spending of health care affects many policies as well as the consumer, physicians, government, children, and senior citizens. The focal focus is based on the first three phases of how the procedure works with Medicare/SCHIP.
Policies are dynamic. There are three interconnected phases of health care policy making: the formulation stage, legislative stage, and implementation stage. These three important organized stages occur in the process in order to convert a topic such as Medicaid, into a policy. To begin, the formulation stage is a planning cycle by stating a theory. It is the main and frequently most challenging stage in obtaining proper decision methods. The obligation of this stage is to set priorities, set objectives and goals, define and appraise options, define issues, draft the policy, create a proper example, circulate for peer review, and revise. The formulation stage also contains many general researches from several organizations, individuals, and interest groups. At this stage looking back at past policies and similar test proves to eliminate the unnecessary while planning what is vital.
The legislative stage is known as the decision making stage where discussions, justifications, debates, and deliberations are handled. The implementation phase happens when the approved policy is progressing. It must be reviewed if there may be some minor changes (Morone, Litman, & Robins, 2008). Last, implementing a policy to report specific issues does not automatically ensure that the matter will be effectively addressed. The three phases have the capability of affecting each other because if one phase of the procedure is not carried out appropriately, the other phases more likely will deteriorate causing the whole policy to collapse. However, because of the nature and practice of the phases, starting over from scratch is not impractical a measure. If after the implementation phase the policy is deemed insufficient, the plan starts from the portions of policy that had issues.
One of primary health care policies is Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid went through various legislative stages. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower had a personal sympathy for health care programs and submitted the idea to Congress. However with a single vote, President Eisenhower’s administration bill was prohibited by the Senator. Later, President John F. Kennedy also had a clear health plan known as Medicare—the name of President Eisenhower’s plan. President Kennedy introduced the Medicare plan on television to the public in 1962. Unfortunately, the Medicare plan was rejected by the Senate (Morone, Litman, & Robins, 2008). In 1965, the Medicaid program was passed by the same legislation, created by the Social Security Amendments when Congress passed the Medicare bill. Although Medicaid was created in 1965, it was not essentially obtainable in every state until 1982. The history of Medicaid demonstrates a conflict or competition within every state on the role health care and government. In the United States, health care is a service purchased and funded at the employer or individual level. In the Medicaid program, the total amount that the government offers varies by state.
Medicaid was first developed and produced to deliver health care services to cover for the poor: “low-income families with children and people with disabilities; long-term care for older Americans and individuals with disabilities; supplemental coverage for low-income Medicare beneficiaries for services not covered by Medicare and Medicare premiums, deductibles and cost sharing” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). Medicaid covers a large sum of the health care services for the qualifying members because most members are very poor and does not have money to pay a remaining balance. It also covers prescription drugs and offers modest co-pay. It is partly subsidized by the community hospitals, charities, federal government, and each separate state. Although benefits may be different from state to state, every state must follow the least possible set of coverage guidelines; meanwhile, federal funding is contributed. For the past two decades, Medicaid has faced quite a few different changes during the stages of its policy in order for the policy to continue producing. Majority of American citizens will be disturbed by both the current and future policies implemented in the efforts to save Medicaid.
The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a policy that was created and settled because there were obviously problems for families raising uninsured children to afford insurance coverage. It is a program controlled by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that delivers funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was intended to insure uninsured children in low income families who were ineligible for Medicaid due to income level exceeding the maximum threshold (Answers, 2012). SCHIP was first defined and began to develop through the formulation stage. It started to classify what resolution will propose long-lasting term benefits, by the people who have skills and knowledge to make effective decisions and place them into action.
For the legislative stage, majority of the time the comparative power of the two parties are relatively similar however they remain sharply divided--especially dealing with Republican Congress and Democratic President, Bill Clinton. For a period, Republican Congress and President Clinton were brutal and belligerent over the health care reform that led to a heated deadlock. It caused the federal government to lock down for a couple of days with a budget gridlock. The Republican Congress expended a whole year challenging a condemned effort to eliminate President Clinton from office by impeachment. It certainly was not a successful dispute for the Republican Congress because President Clinton was still in office to finalize slightly a major decision on the SCHIP policy (Morone, Litman, & Robins, 2008).
In 1997, SCHIP was created with several advocates and legislators, including popular people such as Hillary Clinton, Senator Orrin Hatch, and Senator Ted Kennedy. Once the final decision was appealed, the SCHIP program easily transformed into law. Then with plentiful support among the involved key parties, the SCHIP policy was implemented efficaciously. SCHIP followed the process by designing the program. After following all of the three stages, SCHIP included eligibility, cost sharing, financing, benefits, and access to care to the American infants and children who live in poverty households and has spent about $20 billion for about 10 years. For more than a decade, the SCHIP policy was still processing the method of analysis and evaluation of the policies to determine how much growth and change has transpired and what would be desired for the upcoming of the program. In 2007 after two attempts, the Congress and President Bush were not supportive on approving the SCHIP reauthorization details; therefore, the policy was stretched until March 2009. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 was permitted by the Congress and signed by President Obama on February 4, 2009. President Obama demanded to extract former President Bush’s August 2007 signing of the SCHIP policy, and requested to implement SCHIP from that day forward with the new requirements. For the past 45 years, Medicaid has been transformed from a small health care to the largest health care in the United States. Now, Medicare is providing health care to more than half of children within the SCHIP program. It is an organization that aids Americans who may not even be qualified for Medicaid. Receiving immunization, early protection, prescription, and check-ups can lead to better outcome in healthier lives and lesser spending in health care.
To conclude, everyone involved in creating a policy, especially the Congress and president, needs to study and support each other in pursuing or tracking down of the common goal of excellence health care for all the citizens. Policies are appraised continuously are measured to improve health care for all Americans; on a daily basis majority of Americans are affected by the final decisions that are made. The three interconnected phases of health care policy: formulation stage, legislative stage, and implementation stage are needed to achieve and maintain the policy goals.

Reference
Answers. (2012). State Children's Health Insurance Program. Retrieved by http://www.answers.com/topic/state-children-s-health-insurance-program.
Morone, J. A., Litman, T. J., & Robins, L. S. (2008). Health Politics and Policy (4th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
National Conference and State Legislators. (2010).Children's Health Insurance Program
(CHIP). Retrieved by http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/childrens-health-insurance-program-overview.aspx.
Parella, David. (March 2008). Health is Right. Policy. Retrieved by http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6ef3112c-cf37-40f7-b84f-86401f49d297%40sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=104. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration.
(September, 2000). Medicaid: A Program Overview. A Profile of Medicaid: 2000 Chartbook, Section 1. Retrieved by http://www.policyalmanac.org/ health/ archive/ hhs_medicaid.shtml