The work below has been written by another student. Please point out either 2 weaknesses with their post or add 2 additional supporting points. I will need a total of at least 300-350 original words, apa and at least 2 sources.

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(Jason) Explain briefly how and if chronic health issues have an effect on the cost of operating a criminal justice organization. What is the best manner in which to reduce any said cost if you were asked to design the health benefit package? There are many issues that law enforcement administrations must understand and deal with. One such issue is the rising cost of healthcare and healthcare plans. The Obama administration cited the need to address the rising cost of healthcare by introducing the Affordable Care Act. In theory this act would make healthcare available to all by mandating healthcare coverage or paying a tax for not having healthcare.

Law enforcement officials have seen rising costs of healthcare even before new mandates came out. In law enforcement one, of the main issues with healthcare and cost is related to chronic health issues seen in this line of work. Riccucci (2012) describes a chronic illness as an illness that “reduces workers’ ability to perform essential job functions; hence, they cause disabilities” (p. 79). Many of the chronic health issues seen in this field are related to stress and in some cases a lack of mobility. Stress and lack of mobility can be linked to increase blood pressure, obesity, depression and alcoholism.

In order to combat the rising cost of healthcare within a criminal justice organization, the command staff can do many things to lower or curb increases in group coverage. According to More, Vito, and Walsh (2012) the use of physical conditioning programs and employee assistance programs has shown reductions in both stress and mobility issues (p. 210). With the use of EAP’s the department can have written standards that are included in the program. The written standards can be used for improvements in the physical and mental health of the employees. In some situations the written regulations can even get a reduction in health care plan costs. This can be done by prohibiting certain behavior like the use of tobacco products which in turn can lower group rates. There are also several other ways that administrators can reduce the cost of healthcare. One such way is to take a lesson from the private sector. If an agency is self insured and not apart of a larger café plan then there are several things that can be done to lower costs. Many private sector employers use health screening programs to find issues that usually case chronic health care issues. A full physical exam of each employee can be used for the screening. If problem issues are found then EAP’s can be used to correct the issues. Not only can this reduce coverage costs, but save money by keeping the employee on the job and not home sick. Another idea to reduce cost is by enlarging the coverage pool.

What that means is increasing the number of employees on a plan. This can be done by using a local government wide café plan. For example this plan would include, fire, ems, police, schools and any other local government employee that has the option for healthcare coverage. Generally the more employees on a health plan the lower the overall cost. It may not directly address budget issues for a police department, but indirectly it will due to the lower cost of healthcare at the city or county level.

Reference

More, H. W., Vito, G. F., & Walsh, W. F. (2012). Organizational behavior and management in law enforcement. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Riccucci, N. M. (2012) Public personnel management current concerns, future challenges. Glenview, IL: Longman.