Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Health Care Law Costing Jobs

Debbie Wasserman Schultz was just down on the House floor claiming that Republicans could not cite examples where jobs are being cut within the health care sector.  Actually, here are not one but three examples just from the law’s first few months:

November 1, 2010 – “With St. Joseph County’s unemployment rate still sitting above 10 percent, things could be getting worse thanks to cuts at Memorial Hospital…While hospital leaders admit the economy sparked this problem, it says the Obama health care reform act gave the hospital a one-two punch.”

October 6, 2010 – “Mercy Hospital in Scranton is up for sale…’Health care reform is absolutely playing a role.  Was it the precipitating factor in this decision?  No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years?  Absolutely.’”

August 27, 2010 – “A little noticed provision of the Affordable Care Act will wipe out an estimated 25,000 jobs that physician-owned hospitals were expecting to create within the next year or so.”

Sadly, these examples are only likely to grow in future years, and not just because of the more than half a trillion dollars in tax increases included in the law.  The non-partisan Medicare actuary found that up to 15 percent of hospitals and related medical providers could become unprofitable by 2019 due to provisions in the law, which could result in additional job losses at medical facilities, Medicare beneficiaries losing important access to care, or both.