A Snapshot of the Health Care Workforce
How is the health care workforce changing under ObamaCare? This month’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives us a snapshot of employment in health care versus the rest of the economy. The table below shows the details.
Despite the widely touted notion that ObamaCare is putting hospitals out of business, hospital employment barely budged from February 2013 through February 2014. There are still almost five million workers in hospitals, which are often the largest employer in any district. This makes them a political force to be reckoned with.
However, employment growth in health care has come from various ambulatory settings. This may be a good sign, if it indicates patients are using lower-cost outpatient care ― especially convenient clinics in shopping centers and pharmacies ― instead of over-priced hospital services. On the other hand, it could reflect increased demand for medical-office staff to deal with the unprecedented compliance requirements of ObamaCare.
Overall employment in health care increased 1.32 percent over the twelve months, versus 1.62 percent in nonfarm employment outside health care. The healthcare workforce remains 11 percent of the total nonfarm workforce.
The healthcare workforce is doing fine under ObamaCare. Patients? Not so much.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (March 7, 2014)
“The healthcare workforce is doing fine under ObamaCare. Patients? Not so much.”
Well at least something good has happened.
I am sure there are solutions where both parties can benefit. Thank god employment is doing fine, the last thing we need is employment growth being hurt along with the health insurance.
I’d like to see a comparison of clinical vs administrative staffing levels
These are short term effects that you are pointing out. One year is a very short time for us to know what will happen with the health sector workforce. It can be argued that the increase in the amount of workers can be due to wrong forecasts (remember that we were told that millions of Americans that were previously uninsured will seek medical attention, and this can distort the forecast by companies). Also the increase of temporal workers, those who were hired solely to support the implementation of Obamacare, but have no specialized skills that will help them keep their job after the mandates are fully implemented. There are diverse reasons that explain the promising short term numbers, but the long run effects, which are crucial, are yet to be known.
Obamacare has benefited workers on the health industry while harming patients. This wouldn’t be the first contradiction, considering that ACA has benefited the insurance companies (their stocks have increased significantly) while making the insured worse off.
This should give relief to the many health care professionals that believed their jobs were in jeopardy. The past year was everyone holding their breath to see how hospitals would react, hoping not to cut hours.
Can former hospital employees find work in ambulatory settings? I suppose some can, but some will struggle, especially if the ambulatory setting is an entrepreneurial venture (versus the bureaucratic culture of a hospital).
Pharmacists are affected in the workforce. Walgreens will no longer have any pharmacists that work over 30 hours. Especially with the increased supply of pharmacists coming out of college.
The outlook is looking grim for many pharmacy students. Let’s hope this doesn’t spread out to other careers in healthcare.
It is hard to have a positive outlook when there is lots of uncertainty in the field. I suspect many health students are considering changing majors (especially those that are in for the money not the good of the people)
The number of workers in the health industry has increased in the last year, as it has done for the past decade. The problem is that growth has slowed. From February 2013 to February 2014, employment in healthcare increased by 1.32 percent. But that growth is less than the growth from February 2012 to February 2013 which was 1.66 percent. Even though there is still growth, it has slowed down dramatically (growth levels are as low as during the Great Recession) and this is preoccupying. I am not sure the effects of ACA on the long run, but with this in mind there isn’t a positive outlook for the healthcare workforce in the long run.
(http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet)
Thank you. But is it the purpose of health policy to increase the number of health-care workers? I don’t think so. It should be to get a bigger bang for the buck.