FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate

[FreakinDJ]

Source: RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate

WASHINGTON – Republicans pushing to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand.

But the widely cited estimate by House GOP leaders is shaky. It's the latest creative use of statistics in the health care debate, which has seen plenty of examples from both sides.

It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as the source of the original analysis behind that estimate. But the budget office, which referees the costs and consequences of legislation, never produced the number.

What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_repeal_fact_check

[Rozlee]

1. Bullshit. Add my own personal observations....

More healthcare insurance adds to more people seeking healthcare, which adds to more nurses, x-ray techs, nurses' aides, physical therapists, surgical techs, pharmacy techs, medical transcribers, secretaries, hospital beds, linens, linen makers, services to make empoyee uniforms, transport services for the above, sales services for the above, facilities for the above. It goes on and on. I'm a retired RN myself, but my aunt has told me about her memories of being an RN before Medicaid and Medicare were passed. RNs barely made more than nurse's aides. Come the new Medicare/Medicaid act in 1965, and the need for nurses was so urgent that the pay increased sharply and they were offering RNs giant bonuses and yearly vacations to Hawaii for signing on. More healthcare availability = more jobs. Dumbass Bonehead.

[54anickel]

2. Excellent point! I was happy to see this article getting some play as well. n/t

[Maine_Nurse]

3. Your health care job assertation is not completely true

In states like mine, we will end up with LESS health care professionals. It has already happened. The problem is that over 600,000 out of 1.3 million citizens in this state are already on Medicare or Medicaid (about a 50/50 split). Even though the numbers are slightly less than half, they actually account for significantly more than 1/2 of the care delivered here. In the northern areas, Medicaid recipients often make up 75% or more of a practice's patients. The bad part is that docs and facilities often get paid less than the cost to provide a service, especially under our Medicaid program. Even worse is that our state has been running 3-5 years behind in paying for services rendered for over a decade now. This has put a lot of primary care docs out of business and forced others to join hospitals as "affiliates", letting the hospital handle billing, receivables, etc. There have been quite a few nursing layoffs in the past few years because the cash flow simply isn't flowing. With lower reimbursement rates coming and Kaiser predicting another 50,000 Medicaid enrollees under the 2014 changes, it is only going to get worse here. We are also expecting Medicare coverage to expand further because we are an "old state" and that trend is still rising.

[global1]

5. The Less Health Care Professionals You Experienced Was Due To The Knee-Jerk......

reaction of MBA Health Care Administrators reacting to the downturn in the economy since BushCo and company took us into the dumper. HCR will be a boon and soon those same health care administrators will be looking for people to employ in their facilities because the risk of making errors and causing infection rates to skyrocket by having too few health professionals that are too busy because they have to take up the load of reduced staff - will be to great to overlook.

If you are a working nurse - you have to be honest and tell us that you are now being worked to exhaustion and worried that this will end up hurting the patients you serve versus helping them. If that is happening to you now - how do you think you will handle even a bigger patient workload.

I recommend that if you believe that HCR is job crushing versus job enhancing - that you call your insurance carrier now before the rush to take out more professional liability insurance - cause your going to need it when they try and get 150% more out of you.

I think you will be - along with your other health professional colleagues - marching to the Administrative Wing of your facility and screaming for more help and more support.

[Maine_Nurse]

6. I don't disagree...

and I absolutely want something to be done about our screwed up health care and health insurance system, but in some very limited areas like mine, this is gonna hurt badly. There are already large geographic areas of this state where private practices simply refuse to accept our Medicaid program anymore. This leaves patients having a PCP that is either 75+ miles away and so booked up that you can't get in for over a month or relying on the understaffed and overworked federal rural health clinics that are also often booked up long in advance.

As I said, in this area of high Medicaid/Medicare enrollment, all the new law means is more working at a financial loss. That is the problem. The layoffs, etc that have already happened in the last 2 years were not in any way a reaction to anything except the state not paying their bills for Medcaid services rendered. I was in a hospital in 2008 when the overhead PA broke in and announced that Maine had made a payment authorization for the 2004 fiscal year. There were literally screams and jumps for joy, you'd have thought we all just won a free trip to Aruba. In reality, what it did was cut the number of upcoming nursing and affiliated health layoffs by 40% (they still thinned the heard by a lot). Those delays (and the lack of providers that will accept Medicaid) are only going to get worse as we get tens of thousands of new enrollees.

[global1]

4. Here - Here - I'm In Total Agreement With You As A Fellow Health Practitioner...

I've been saying this from the beginning - with 30 to 40 million more people coming into the system - health care practitioners will be busier than ever and the job market for health care workers will go gang busters. This HCR will have such an impact on the system in general that any company remotely related to serving healthcare by way or products or services will be benefiting. I can't understand why the Dems and Obama haven't focused on this fact and touted this from its inception.

Everybody in the system will be busier. The demand for all kinds of products that keep Health Care Workers - organized, safe, and efficient will be such that manufacturers will have to ramp up production at a fast pace. This will turn on the spigot for all sorts of manufacturing jobs all the way down the line.

We haven't seen the total impact of HCR yet - but it's coming. If I were a company that manufactured pharmaceuticals, medical devices or any other item that may find its way into a health care facility - I would be screaming at the top of my lungs to the Repugs to not attempt to repeal this law.

Wake up guys(health related products manufacturers). You have the golden goose sitting right out there for the taking and many of you are supporting the efforts of the Repugs because you are believing the lies.

Any health related products manufacturer that has a facility in any state that has Repug representation - you should be on your phone today - to stop this nonsense that the Repugs are pulling.