Health care policies are plans intended to determine or influence decisions or actions that will help achieve specific health care goals. Most of these policies are actions taken by the government to improve the American health care system. The purpose of this essay is to describe the process by which a topic eventually becomes policy and to relate to the policy process of the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA). This essay will include the formulation stage, the legislative stage and the implementation stage of a comprehensive policy process. Health care policy Health care policy targets the organization, financing and delivery of health care services. The reason we target these areas is for licensing to healthcare professionals and institutions, to ensure the protection of patients' private health information, and measures of quality of care, errors, malpractice and efforts to control health care costs. (Acuff, 2010). There are several steps to follow when creating a policy (see Figure 1). The figure below shows the critical stages of the policy process. First, the problem must be identified, once the problem is identified, potential policy solutions must be formulated, then the policy is adopted, and then implemented. Once the policy is in place, an evaluation of the policy should take place (This Nation, 2013). Figure 1. Critical stages of the policy process Source: The Public Policy Process, This Nation. Identify the problem Many problems exist, but for one to appear on the public policy agenda, it must be a salient issue, meaning it must be an issue that stands out and is faced by a large interest group (Boundless, 2013). The ACA is an example. Beginning in 2014, the ACA will provide health care coverage for all, reduce health care costs, and improve health quality. The big interest group in this situation is the millions of Americans. Formulation Stage Formulation is the second stage after problem identification and agenda setting. This step involves proposing solutions to the problem. Policy makers are proposing several courses of action and solutions to resolve the problem. Then find an effective solution that will solve most of the problems (Boundless, 2013). The purpose of implementing the ACA is that many people are uninsured for a variety of reasons, some of the reasons being financial hardship, pre-existing conditions, and work status. The most effective solution to these problems was to formulate