Dive Brief:
- The healthcare sector's extraordinary, ongoing job growth during the Great Recession and since is very much a result of recession-inspired ACA policies that erred on the side of protecting employment over controlling healthcare spending, according to a recent Politico commentary by healthcare policy writer Dan Diamond.
- This upward trajectory in healthcare employment has both positive and negative implications for the economy as healthcare costs continue to spiral partially as a result, and as investment in the sector reduces attention to other industries.
- The trend shows no signs of stopping, with lawmakers reluctant to touch the "sacred cow" of healthcare and with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projecting about 25% of all new jobs in the next decade will be in healthcare and social services. Current BLS stats show healthcare employment to have increased by 39,000 in June alone.
Dive Insight:
The question of whether this unabated spate of healthcare job growth is actually a good thing has been raised long before; a 2012 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine argued, "The challenge is that it's easy to count jobs but much, much harder to figure out who paid for them and whether those resources could have been put to better use."
Complicating the matter is that it isn't just a question of whether sustained job growth is good or bad, but whether lawmakers are willing to do anything to change it, given their interest in preserving such jobs in their own districts. Diamond notes that every congressional district has a minimum of one hospital and that it's often the district's largest employer. "Overall, healthcare and social assistance employs the most people in 56% of congressional districts," he argued.
Furthermore, districts may be leery to reduce the indirect benefits of a booming healthcare sector, which can include boosts to construction and travel, among other things. As much as legislators and voters may see the need to control rising healthcare costs, competing local priorities muddle the issue.
One interesting point Diamond brings up is that venture capitalists can do and make strides that legislative counterparts are not willing to do. For example, telemedicine and and technologies could help streamline simple administrative tasks, thus trimming jobs/expenses.